Gorobeyko U.V., Kadetova A.A., Kazakov D.V., Maslov A.A., Stefanov S.Yu.
В издании Modern Achievements in Population, Evolutionary, and Ecological Genetics: International Symposium, Vladivostok – Vostok Marine Biological Station, September 2–5, 2025: Abstracts
Год: 2025 Страницы: 8
The Japanese big-footed bat, Myotis macrodactylus (Temminck, 1840) is a Far Eastern bat species, protected and vulnerable throughout its range, which limited to the Japanese islands, Kunashir Island, the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, the southern Primorsky Krai and adjacent areas of northeastern China. Three morphological subspecies have been noted for the Japanese bigfooted bat: the nominotypical one, distributed on the islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Tsushima and Yakushima, M. m. continentalis Tiunov, 1997, described from southern Primorye, and M. m. insularis Tiunov, 1997, presumably living on Kunashir Island. Nevertheless, intraspecific variability in the mainland part of the range, as well as genetic differences between subspecies, remains unknown. Therefore, this work aimed to study M. macrodactylus intraspecific structure based on mtDNA variability. A total of 14 cytB gene sequences obtained for specimens from Primorsky Krai (n = 9) and Kunashir Island (n = 5) were analyzed and compared with all available data from GenBank. This allowed us to identify two highly divergent genetic lineages in M. macrodactylus with an average p-distance between them of 3.94%, indicating subspecific level of differences. The island lineage "insularis" is distributed on the Japanese Islands, Kunashir Island and South Korea, the mainland lineage "continentalis" is revealed exceptionally in the southern Primorye and adjacent territories of China. In contrast to the mainland lineage, the island one is more differentiated and contains at least four subgroups with unclear distribution. The most common subgroups is detected on Honshu, Hokkaido and Kunashir, the second is observed just on Hokkaido, and the other two are found only either in South Korea (Gangwon-do) and Tsushima Island, or on Honshu and Jeju-do. Although the mainland lineage appears slightly homogeneous, the individuals from Primorsky Krai are more variable than Chinese specimens, which are represented by a single central haplotype for the lineage. Thus, a new data on the M. macrodactylus intraspecific structure show that bats living in Primorsky Krai and China differ significantly from specimens in the rest of the range, which may confirm the subspecific status of M. m. continentalis. No reliable differences were found between individuals from Kunashir Island and the Japanese Islands, or between Honshu and Hokkaido.
