The musk shrew (Suncus murinus) is a small mammalian species belonging to Insectivora. It is widely distributed in Asia. To identify the genetic relationship among wild musk shrew populations and examine its migration route, we investigated the populations of Cambodia and Bhutan by using mitochondrial DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and compared them with other Asian populations previously described. Four haplotypes were detected in Cambodia and eight in Bhutan. A total of 53 haplotypes were detected in Asia and were classified largely into two groups, the Continental and Island types, based on a minimum spanning network. From the distribution of mtDNA types in wild musk shrews, three major population groups are identified in Asia: South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Malay. It is suggested that the Malay population group was a mix of South and Southeast Asian population groups and that this was a contact area of the two groups. In addition, other contact areas between the South and Southeast Asian groups exist in Myanmar, but unlike the Malay, the Myanmar area was the border of these groups.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We greatly appreciate the students of the Royal University of Agriculture in Cambodia and staff of the Ministry of Agriculture in Bhutan for helping us during the fieldwork in Cambodia and Bhutan. This research was conducted with the help of the Society for Research on Native Livestock and supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (No. 16201046, 15405033, and 14405029).
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Kurachi, M., Chau, BL., Dang, VB. et al. Population Structure of Wild Musk Shrews (Suncus murinus) in Asia Based on Mitochondrial DNA Variation, with Research in Cambodia and Bhutan. Biochem Genet 45, 165–183 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-006-9051-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-006-9051-0