title: Phylogeography of mitochondrial DNA variation in brown bears and polar bears.
abstract: We analyzed 286 nucleotides of the middle portion of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene of 61 brown bears from three locations in Alaska and 55 polar bears from Arctic Canada and Arctic Siberia to test our earlier observations of paraphyly between polar bears and brown bears as well as to test the extreme uniqueness of mitochondrial DNA types of brown bears on Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof (ABC) islands of southeastern Alaska. We also investigated the phylogeography of brown bears of Alaska's Kenai Peninsula in relation to other Alaskan brown bears because the former are being threatened by increased human development. We predicted that: (1) mtDNA paraphyly between brown bears and polar bears would be upheld, (2) the mtDNA uniqueness of brown bears of the ABC islands would be upheld, and (3) brown bears of the Kenai Peninsula would belong to either clade II or clade III of brown bears of our earlier studies of mtDNA. All of our predictions were upheld through the analysis of these additional samples.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-7000, USA.
authors.forename: G F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Shields
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Garner
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Labelle
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pietsch
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ramsay
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Titus
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Williamson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D003573:Cytochrome b Group / Q000235:genetics; D017931:DNA Primers; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D005843:Geography; D010802:Phylogeny; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D001503:Ursidae / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D003573:Cytochrome b Group; D017931:DNA Primers; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial