title: Tracing the eastward dispersal of the house mouse, Mus musculus.
abstract: Here we describe recent advances in our understanding of the natural history of the house mouse, Mus musculus, with a focus on the genetic characteristics of the home territories and how this relates to prehistoric eastward movements from the predicted source areas. Recent studies of mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences provide insight into the ancient divergence of the three subspecies groups, M. m. castaneus (CAS), M. m. domesticus (DOM), and M. m. musculus (MUS), with inferred natural habits (homelands) in central (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India), western (western Iran), and northern (central Asia) areas, respectively. Our mitochondrial DNA and nuclear gene analyses indicate that only one local lineage of CAS extended its range via historical rapid expansion at two different times to Southeast Asia and East Asia, including Japan and southern Sakhalin. This is suggestive of a rapid range expansion of CAS out of its homeland, perhaps associated with the spread of agricultural practices in Asia. The subspecies group MUS now occurs in a large portion of northern Eurasia from eastern Europe in the West to the Japanese Islands in the East, including Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, southern Siberia, northern China, and Korea, showing divergent patterns in terms of Mus musculus genetics, particularly in relation to nuclear gene sequences, allozymes (e.g., hemoglobin), morphological characteristics, and cytogenetic C-banding patterns. In this review article, we explain the complex spatial patterns of MUS. We postulate that two historical dispersal events took place, from two different source areas, and tentatively assign the taxon names "musculus" and "wagneri" to the two populations, which are associated with distinct genetic modules.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Ecology and Genetics, Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810 Japan.
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.affiliation: Ecological Department, Vladivostok State University Economics and Service, Vladivostok, 690014 Russia.
authors.forename: Lyudmila V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Yakimenko
authors.affiliation: RIKEN, Bioresource Center, Tsukuba, 305-0074 Japan.
authors.forename: Daiki
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Usuda
authors.affiliation: Institute for Complex Analysis of Regional Problems FEB RAS, Birobidzhan, 679016 Russia.
authors.forename: Liubov V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Frisman
keywords: Anthropogenic movement; Mus musculus wagneri; Phylogeography; Prehistoric colonization