The Auk: Vol. 117, pp. 1003-1015
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Istituto Nazionale per la Fauna Selvatica, via Cà Fornacetta 9, 40064, Ozzano dell Emilia, (BO), Italy (V.L., E.R.);
Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Parc Zoologique de Clères, 76690, Clères, France (A.H.);
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA (T.A.-P., R.T.K., E.L.B., J.D.L);
Departments of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology (R.T.K.) and Plant Biology (E.L.B.),
Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA;
E.L.B. and R.T.K.
are currently in the Department of Zoology at the University of Florida.
We sequenced mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from cytochrome b (cyt b) and the
control region (CR) for all five extant species in the genus Tragopan.
We incorporated information on comparative patterns and rates of molecular
evolution into phylogenetic analyses, using both a single-gene and a
combined data approach. Sequence variability was distributed heterogeneously
among the three domains of CR and the three codon positions of cyt b,
but the two genes evolved at comparable rates, on average, and produced
concordant topologies independent of the method used for phylogenetic
reconstructions. Phylogenetic trees suggest that Tragopan includes two
main evolutionary lineages grouping caboti-temminckii (clade A), and
blythii-satyra (clade B). A shorter CR sequence from one museum
sample could not consistently resolve the position of T. melanocephalus.
The mtDNA phylogeny is better supported than alternative topologies inferred
from morphological and behavioral traits and is compatible with a mechanism
of allopatric speciation of Tragopan in two different episodes about
4 and 2 million years ago. In those periods, the vicariant events
that might have fostered allopatric speciation of Tragopan are represented
by landscape changes that affected the Indohimalayan region after the
sudden rising of the Himalayas less then 8 million years ago,
and by climatic fluctuations during the Pleistocene less than 2 million years ago.