Zoological Studies

Phylogeographic Variation in Mitochondrial DNA of Formosan White-bellied Rat Niviventer culturatus

Fu-Hsiung Hsu, Fei-Jann Lin and Yao-Sung Lin (2000) Phylogeographic variation in mtDNA of the Formosan white-bellied rat Niviventer culturatus (Muridae) was studied by the PCR-RFLP method, using 128 individuals from 20 locations throughout its distribution range in Taiwan. Restriction fragment polymorphisms represented by the CYTb/DL (2800 bp) and 12S/16S (1900 bp) fragments were assayed by 13 restriction endonucleases. Totally, 25 mtDNA haplotypes were observed. The sequence divergence between all pairs of haplotypes ranged between 0.32% and 2.63%. The amount of within-locality nucleotide diversity was estimated to be from 0% to 0.69%. Pairwise analysis of net nucleotide divergence between locations ranged between -0.08% and 1.71%. There was little phylogeographic patterning among the haplotypes, and most of them were found within a single location or associated with nearby locations, except for some widespread haplotypes. The results suggest that population differentiation in the Formosan white-bellied rat is minor, probably due to historical vicariance events and a high level of gene flow.