Phylogeny and evolution of the genus Cervus (Cervidae, Mammalia) as revealed by complete mitochondrial genomes

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 16381
• Main Authors: Mackiewicz, Paweł, Matosiuk, Maciej, Świsłocka, Magdalena, Zachos, Frank E., Hajji, Ghaiet M., Saveljev, Alexander P., Seryodkin, Ivan V., Farahvash, Tarlan, Rezaei, Hamid Reza, Torshizi, Rasoul Vaez, Mattioli, Stefano, Ratkiewicz, Mirosław
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 30-09-2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/181/735; 631/181/757; Biodiversity; Cervidae; Deer; Fossils; Genomes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mitochondrial DNA; multidisciplinary; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Population number; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Taxa
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-20763-x

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages are recognized as important components of intra- and interspecific biodiversity, and allow to reveal colonization routes and phylogeographic structure of many taxa. Among these is the genus
Cervus
that is widely distributed across the Holarctic. We obtained sequences of complete mitochondrial genomes from 13
Cervus
taxa and included them in global phylogenetic analyses of 71 Cervinae mitogenomes. The well-resolved phylogenetic trees confirmed
Cervus
to be monophyletic. Molecular dating based on several fossil calibration points revealed that
ca
. 2.6 Mya two main mitochondrial lineages of
Cervus
separated in Central Asia, the Western (including
C. hanglu
and
C. elaphus
) and the Eastern (comprising
C. albirostris
,
C. canadensis
and
C. nippon
). We also observed convergent changes in the composition of some mitochondrial genes in
C. hanglu
of the Western lineage and representatives of the Eastern lineage. Several subspecies of
C. nippon
and
C. hanglu
have accumulated a large portion of deleterious substitutions in their mitochondrial protein-coding genes, probably due to drift in the wake of decreasing population size. In contrast to previous studies, we found that the relic haplogroup B of
C. elaphus
was sister to all other red deer lineages and that the Middle-Eastern haplogroup E shared a common ancestor with the Balkan haplogroup C. Comparison of the mtDNA phylogenetic tree with a published nuclear genome tree may imply ancient introgressions of mtDNA between different
Cervus
species as well as from the common ancestor of South Asian deer,
Rusa timorensis
and
R. unicolor
, to the
Cervus
clade.