Riverine barriers have little influence on genetic structure of Rattus tanezumi

Rivers may hinder population migration and promote genetic differentiation of terrestrial animals. Most studies testing the riverine barrier hypothesis have yielded positive results, while very few studies do not support this hypothesis. In this study, 384 Asian house rats (Rattus tanezumi) were collected fromYunnan,China. By combined use of the sequence markers of mitochondrial (mtDNA) and nuclear (IRBP), we tested the influence of five local rivers on the population genetics of R. tanezumi. A total of 81 mtDNA haplotypes and 135 IRBP haplotypes were determined, and many of which were shared by two or more of the six geographic regions. AMOVA analyses showed that most variations happened either within populations or among populations, while very few variations (<15%) happened among the six geographic regions formed by the five rivers. SAMOVA analysis classified the mtDNA sequences into three groups, while no genetic differentiation was detected on IRBP. Our results concluded that ri...

河流可能阻碍陆生动物的种群迁徙，并推动其遗传分化。迄今为止，多数验证河流屏障假说（riverine barrier hypothesis）的研究均得到了支持性结果，仅有极少数研究不支持该假说。本研究从中国云南省采集了384只黄胸鼠（Rattus tanezumi），联合使用线粒体DNA（mtDNA）与核基因IRBP的序列标记，探究了5条本地河流对黄胸鼠种群遗传学特征的影响。本研究共鉴定出81个mtDNA单倍型与135个IRBP单倍型，其中多数单倍型为5条河流划分出的6个地理区域中的2个及以上区域所共有。分子方差分析（AMOVA）结果显示，绝大多数遗传变异均存在于种群内部或种群之间，仅有不到15%的遗传变异来自这6个地理区域之间。空间分子方差分析（SAMOVA）将mtDNA序列划分为3个聚类组，而IRBP序列未检测到显著遗传分化。本研究结果表明，河流...