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Vol. 50 No. 5, 2011
Phylogeographic Structure of the Fossorial Long-Clawed Mouse Chelemys macronyx (Cricetidae:
Sigmodontinae)
Oriet
Alarcón1, Guillermo D’Elía2,*, Enrique P. Lessa3,
and Ulyses F.J. Pardiñas4
1Doctorado
en Sistemática y Biodiversidad, Univ. de Concepción, Concepción, Chile
2Instituto
de Ciencias de la Tierra y Evolución, Univ. Austral de Chile, Valdivia,
Chile and Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia,
Coyhaique, Chile
3Departamento de Ecología y Evolución, Facultad de
Ciencias, Univ. de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay
4Unidad de Investigación Diversidad, Sistemática y
Evolución, Centro Nacional Patagónico, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina
Oriet Alarcón,
Guillermo D’Elía, Enrique P. Lessa, and Ulyses F.J. Pardiñas
(2011) We present
a phylogeographic study of the fossorial sigmodontine mouse Chelemys macronyx.
Analyses were based on mitochondrial DNA sequences of specimens
collected over most of distributional range of the species. Results
showed that C. macronyx has a
shallow genealogy that is geographically structured into 2 main clades:
one in the northern part of the species distribution, at high-Andean
localities in the Argentinean provinces of Mendoza and northern
Neuquén, and the other covering the majority of its distributional
range at medium- to low-elevation localities from northwestern Neuquén
to the south. The northern clade appears to have been demographically
stable, while the southern clade presents signals of demographic
expansion. These results suggest that current genetic variation of C. macronyx may have originated
from 2 refugia.
Key words: Abrotrichini,
Andes, Cytochrome b,
Taxonomy, Patagonia.
*Correspondence: E-mail:guille.delia@gmail.com
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