Biosystematic study of Calomyscus mystax (Rodentia, Calomyscidae) from northeastern Iran

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

2 Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405-0086, USA

Abstract

We use a combination of traditional and geometric morphometric plus phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences to confirm the presence in the Kopetdagh Mts. of northeastern Iran (North Khorasan province) of the Great Balkhan brush-tailed mouse, Calomyscus mystax Kashkarov, 1925 previously regarded as endemic to the Nibit-Dag region of southwestern Turkmenistan. We further compare C. mystax to other brush-tailed mice species in eastern and northern Iran and provide diagnostic external and craniodental characters for each and to examine the affinities with C. grandis with which C. mystax shares a similar karyotype.

Keywords


Aliabadian, M., Nijman, V., Mahmoudi, A., Naderi, M., Vonk, R., Vences, M. 2014. ExcaliBAR: a simple and fast software utility to calculate intra- and interspecific distances from DNA barcodes. Contributions to Zoology 83: 79-83.
 
Bruford, M. W., Hanotte, O., Brokfield, J. F. Y., Burke, T. 1992. Single-locus and multilocus DNA fingerprinting. In Hoelzel, A. R. ed. Molecular genetic analysis of populations: a practical approach. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 225-269.
 
Graphodatsky, A. S., Sablina, O. V., Meyer, M. N., Malikov, V. G., Isakova, E. A., Trifonov, V. A., Polyakov, A. V., Lushnikova, T. P., Vorobieva, N. V., Serdyukova, N. A., Perelman, P. L., Borodin, P. M., Benda, P., Frynta, D., Leikepova, L., Munclinger, P., Pialek, J., Sadlova, J., Zima, J. 2000. Comparative cytogenetics of hamsters of the genus Calomyscus. Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics 88, 296-304.
 
Hammer, Ø., Harper, D. A. T., Ryan, P. D. 2001. PAST: Paleontological Statistics software package for education and data analysis. Palaeontologia Electronica 4, 9pp.
 
Hall, T. A. 1999. BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analisys program for Windows 95/98NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series 41, 95-98.
 
Kashkarov, D. 1925. [Materials to the knowledge of the rodents of the Turkestan.] Transactions of the SA cientific Society of Turkestan at Middle Asiatic University 2, 43-57 (in Russian).
 
Lebedev, V. S., Pavlinov, I. Ya., Meyer, M. N., Malikov, V. G. 1998. [Craniometric analysis of mouse-like hamsters of the genus Calomyscus (Cricetidae)]. Zoologichaskii Zhurnal 77, 721-731 (in Russian).
 
Malikov, V. G., Meyer, M. N., Graphodatsky, A. S., Polyakov, A. V., Sablina O. V., Vaziri, A. Sh., Nazari, F., Zima J. 1999. On a taxonomic position of some karyomophs belong to genus Calomyscus (Rodentia, Cricetidae). Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS 281, 27-32.
 
Meyer, M. N., Malikov, V. G. 1995. [On the distribution, taxonomic status and biology of mouselike hamsters of the genus Calomyscus (Rodentia, Cricetidae)]. Zoologiskii Zhurnal 74, 96-100 (in Russian).
 
Meyer, M. N., Malikov, V. G. 2000. [New species and subepscies of mouse-like hamsters of the genus Calomyscus (Rodentia, Cricetidae) from southern Turkmenistan]. Zoologichaskii Zhurnal 79, 219-223 (in Russian).
 
Montgelard, C., Bentz, S., Tirard, C., Verneau, O., Catzeflis, F. M. 2002. Molecular systematics of Sciurognathi (Rodentia): the mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12S rRNA genes support the Anomaluroidea (Peptidae and Anomaluridae). Molecular Phylogenetic and Evolution 22, 220-233.
 
Musser, G. G., Carleton, M. D. 1993. Family Muridae. In Wilson, D. E., Reeder, D. M., eds. Mammal species of the world: A taxonomic and geographic reference. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C. second edition, pp. 501-755.
 
Musser, G. G., Carleton, M. D. 2005. Subfamily Murinae. In Wilson, D. E., Reeder, D. M., eds. Mammal species of the world: A taxonomic and geographic reference. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, third edition, volume 2, pp. 894-1531.
 
Norris, R. W., Woods, C. A., Kilpatrick, C. W. 2008. Morphological and molecular definition of Calomyscus hotsoni (Rodentia: Muroidea: Calomyscidae). Journal of Mammalogy 89, 306-315.
 
Palvinov, I. Ya., Rossolimo, O. I. 1998. [Systematics of mammals of the USSR. Addenda M.] Archives of the Zoological Museum, Moscow State University 38, 190 pp (in Russian).
 
Rohlf, F. J. 2001. TpsDig, version 1.30. Dept. Ecology and Evolution, State University of New York at Stony Brook.
 
Ronquist, F., Huelsenbeck, J. P. 2003. MRBAYES3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics 19, 1572-1574.
 
Steppan, S. J., Adkins, R. M., Anderson, J. 2004. Phylogeny and divergence-date estimates of rapid radiation in muroid rodents based on multiple nuclear genes. Systematic Biology 53, 533-553
.
Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., Strecher, G., Nei, M., Kumar, S. 2011. Mega5: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum parsimony methods. Molecular Biology and Evolution 28: 2731-2739.
 
Vorontsov, N. N., Kartavtesva, I. V., Potapova, E. G. 1979. [Systematics of the genus Calomyscus. 1. Karyological differentiation of the sibling species from Transcaucasia and Turkmenia and a review of species of the genus Calomyscus.]. Zoologichaskii Zhurnal 58, 1215-1224 (in Russian).
CAPTCHA Image