Mitochondrial Phylogeography and Population History of the Balkan Short-Tailed Mouse (Mus macedonicus Petrov and Ružić, 1983) in Turkey and Surrounding Areas
Name
diversity-17-00740.pdf
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3.61 MB
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Resource type
Journal article
Date published
November 2025
Abstract
As a contribution to our understanding of postglacial colonisation history of Anatolia, the Caucasus and the Middle East, we increased the existing phylogeographic coverage of the widespread Balkan short-tailed mouse Mus macedonicus. This added 92 new mitochondrial D-loop sequences (73 new haplotypes) from Anatolia and Thrace to generate a total dataset for the species of 221 sequences (174 haplotypes). We confirmed the previously described existence of a northern lineage (Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the Caucasus, Iran and Syria) and southern lineage (Israel and Lebanon) and generated Bayesian Skyline Plots to show demographic expansion after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in the northern lineage but not the southern. We used haplotype networks to reveal haplotypes close to the ancestral condition of the northern lineage and to infer spread through its range, including colonisation of the southern Balkans. Our various phylogenetic reconstructions also show finer-scale geographic structuring. M. macedonicus likely occupied two separate glacial refugia in the vicinities of Israel and Lebanon (southern lineage) and Anatolia, Georgia and Iran (northern lineage) although further work is needed for precise localisation. M. macedonicus has become a well-worked model system for the phylogeography of a region deserving more attention.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Genetics Society of Great Britain | |
Biology Department of the University of York | |
Journal title
Diversity
Volume
17
Issue
11
Article number
740
Publisher
MDPI AG
eISSN
1424-2818
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Rights statement
In Copyright