Phylogeographic relationships and shallow mitochondrial divergence of Algerian populations of Salamandra algira

The North African fire salamander, Salamandra algira, is
distributed in Algeria, Morocco and Ceuta (Spanish territory located on the
north coast of Africa), but until now rather limited information has been
available on the populations across the Algerian part of its range. We here
provide a first analysis of the phylogeography of this species in Algeria,
based on 44 samples from populations distributed across 15 localities in
Central Algeria. We sequenced three segments of mitochondrial DNA, covering 12S
rRNA, cytochrome b (Cytb) and the D-loop. The mtDNA sequences of the
Algerian samples were strongly different from the Moroccan populations
occurring west of the Moulouya River (corresponding to the subspecies S. a.
tingitana and S. a. splendens) but sister to the genetically rather
similar population from the Beni Snassen Massif in eastern Morocco (subspecies S.
algira spelaea). Among the Algerian specimens studied, those from the
westernmost site, Chrea Massif, were the sister clade to the remaining
populations, and the overall genetic divergence was low, with a maximum of five
mutational steps in a 295 bp fragment of cytochrome b.

北非火焰蝾螈（学名：Salamandra algira），其分布区域涵盖阿尔及利亚、摩洛哥以及非洲北部海岸的塞乌塔（西班牙领土），然而截至目前，关于其分布范围内阿尔及利亚部分种群的信息相对匮乏。本研究首次对阿尔及利亚该物种的谱系地理学进行了分析，该分析基于来自阿尔及利亚中部15个地点的44个种群样本。我们对该物种的线粒体DNA的三个片段进行了测序，包括12S核糖体RNA、细胞色素b（Cytb）以及D环。阿尔及利亚样本的mtDNA序列与位于摩洛哥穆卢亚河以西的种群（对应亚种S. a. tingitana和S. a. splendens）存在显著差异，但与遗传上较为相似的摩洛哥本尼森纳赛山脉的种群（亚种S. algira spelaea）亲缘关系密切。在所研究的阿尔及利亚标本中，来自最西端地点——克雷亚山脉的标本与剩余种群构成姐妹群，整体遗传分化程度较低，细胞色素b的295碱基片段中最多存在五个突变步骤。