Vol. 60, 2021 (update: 2021.05.10) Identifying A New Phylogeographic Population of the Blyth’s Tragopan (Tragopan blythii) through Multi-locus AnalysesJingyi
Zou1, Lu Dong2 doi:10.6620/ZS.2021.60-40
1School
of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083.
*Correspondence: E-mail: wangnan8854100@qq.com (Wang) Received 20 August 2020 / Accepted 19
April 2021 Geographically and morphologically
distinct populations within a species are frequently the focus of
conservation efforts, especially when the populations are
evolutionarily significant units. The Blyth’s Tragopan (Tragopan blythii) is a
globally-threatened species confined to South and Southeast Asia.
During our field surveys in western Myanmar, we discovered a distinct
group of individuals that differed in their appearance relative to all
other populations. We further examined the differences in their DNA
sequence using three nuclear introns and three mitochondrial genes
through phylogenetic analytical methods. Our results showed the
population from Mount Kennedy, Chin Hills formed reciprocal
monophyletic groups with the nominate subspecies from Mount Saramati,
Sagaing Division. Species delimitation analyses further confirmed this
differentiation. Geographical isolation by the intervening lowlands
found between high elevation habitats may have been the main cause of
their differentiation. Hence, we propose that the Mount Kennedy
population be viewed as a distinct evolutionarily significant unit and
be given special priority for conservation. Key words: Bird conservation, Edge population, Evolutionary significant units, Galliformes, Tragopan blythii. Citation: Zou J, Davison G, Hlaing W, Aung
MM, Zhang Y, Zhang Z, Wang N, Chen D. 2021. Identifying a new
phylogeographic population of the Blyth’s Tragopan (Tragopan blythii) through
multi-locus analyses. Zool Stud 60:40.
doi:10.6620/ZS.2021.60-40. Supplementary Materials: Fig. S1 | Fig. S2 | Table S1 | Table S2 | Table S3 |