title: Multilocus phylogeny of talpine moles (Talpini, Talpidae, Eulipotyphla) and its implications for systematics.
abstract: The tribe Talpini is a group of strictly subterranean moles distributed across the Eurasian Continent whose phylogenetic relationships and taxonomy remain unresolved. Here we report a multi-locus nuclear-mitochondrial DNA dataset (9468 bp) from 11 talpine species encompassing all five recognized genera, together with analyses of their divergence times and evolutionary affinities inferred from maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches. Our results finely resolved all relationships except the root of the four recognized Asian genera, which was placed sister to the genus Talpa. With respect to the Asian clade, we moreover provide the first molecular support for a sister-taxon relationship between Parascaptor and Scaptochirus and confirm that the genus Euroscaptor is paraphyletic. Further, and despite a relatively small sample size (22 specimens), our species delimitation analyses support the existence of at least two genetically distinct, and hence potentially cryptic species. Taken together, these findings argue that generic status should be given to E. mizura and illustrate that the taxonomic diversity of the tribe Talpini in mountainous regions of southwestern China and Southeast Asia is underestimated. Finally, results of our divergence time analyses support a rapid radiation of the endemic Asian genera in the late-Miocene, which temporally corresponds with enhanced aridity and cooling arising from a significant uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan plateau.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada. Electronic address: hk200131060071@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Akio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shinohara
authors.forename: Xue-Long
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Kevin L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Campbell
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D008971:Moles / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Cryptic species; Rapid radiation; Species delimitation; Species tree; Talpidae; Talpini