科研之友
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摘要
Morphology has traditionally been used to diagnose the taxa of various taxonomic ranks. However, there is growing evidence that morphology is not always able to reveal cryptic taxa, and that pronounced morphological variation could reflect phenotypic plasticity rather than evolutionary divergence. Spur-thighed tortoises (the Testudo graeca complex), distributed in the western Palaearctic region, are characterized by high morphological variability and complicated taxonomy, which are under debate. Previous molecular studies using mainly mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences have revealed incongruence between genetic differentiation and morphology-based taxonomy, suggesting that morphological variability is the result of phenotypic plasticity and stabilizing selection, which masks the true genealogies. In the present study, we used a range-wide sampling and nuclear Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to investigate genetic differentiation within the T.?graeca complex. We found that spur-thighed tortoises are differentiated into four geographically well-defined AFLP groups: BalkansMiddle Eastern, western Mediterranean, Caucasian and central-eastern Iranian. Compared with the distribution of mtDNA lineages, the groups are largely concordant, although the AFLP markers are less sensitive and distinguish fewer groups than do mtDNA sequences. The AFLP groups show an allopatric or parapatric distribution. The AFLP differentiation conflicts with the previously proposed morphology-based taxonomy of the complex, suggesting that local adaptation to different environmental conditions may have led to the great extent of morphological variation within the same lineages. We propose a re-evaluation of the taxa that were confirmed genetically using a thorough morphological analysis corrected for phenotypic plasticity.
- 出版日期2013-1
