Abstract
This article presents data on frequencies of mitotypes (control region and cytochrome b and ND2 genes) in groups of Gray Whales found off the Chukotka Peninsula, Koryak coast, eastern Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island. From north to south the number of mitotypes decreased dramatically, but mitotypes which were predominant in the south were the same as ones also abundant in northern samples. For the control region sequences only, our data and data presented in the literature suggest that breeding areas in Baja California may include diversity of both distant groups of mitochondrial lineages known for the species. On the other hand, the same control region sequences may be found in different mitochondrial genomes, and so conclusions based on this mtDNA fragment only may be incorrect.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alter, S.E., Flores, S.R., Nigenda, S., et al., Mitochondrial and nuclear genetic variation across calving lagoons in eastern north pacific gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), J. Heredity, 2009, vol. 100, pp. 34–46.
Alter, S.E. and Palumbi, S.R., Comparing evolutionary patterns and variability in the mitochondrial control region and cytochrome b in three species of baleen whales, J. Mol. Evol., 2009, vol. 68, no. 1, pp. 97–111.
Alter, S.E., Newsome, S.D., and Palumbi, S.R., Pre-whaling genetic diversity and population ecology in eastern pacific gray whales: insights from ancient DNA and stable isotopes, PLoS One, 2012, vol. 7, no. 5, p. e35039.
Bandelt, H.J., Forster, P., and Röhl, A., Median joining networks for inferring intraspecific phylogenies, Mol. Biol. Evol., 1999, no. 16, pp. 37–48.
Excoffier, L., Laval, G., and Schneider, S., Arlequin ver. 3.0: an integrated software package for population genetics data analysis, Evol. Bioinform. Online, 2005, no. 1, pp. 47–50.
Goerlitz, D.S., Urbán, J., Rojas-Bracho, L., et al., Mitochondrial DNA variation among eastern north pacific gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) on winter breeding grounds in Baja California, Can. J. Zool., 2003, vol. 81, no. 12, pp. 1965–1972.
Hall, T.A., BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for windows 95/98/NT, Nucl. Acids Symp. Ser., 1999, no. 41, pp. 95–98.
Ilyashenko, V.Yu., Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus, Lillijeborg, 1861) recovers historical range, in Marine Mammals of the Holarctic: Collection of Scientific Papers after the Seventh International Conference, Moscow: Marine Mammal Council, 2012, vol. 1, pp. 273–276.
Jayasankar, P., Anoop, B., and Rajagopalan, M., PCR-based sex determination of cetaceans and dugong from the Indian seas, Curr. Sci., 2008, vol. 94, no. 11, pp. 1513–1516.
LeDuc, R.G., Weller, D.W., Hyde, J., et al., Genetic differences between western and eastern gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), J. Cetacean Res. Manag., 2002, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–5.
Maminov, M.K. and Blokhin, S.A., Gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in coastal waters of the southern Far East, in Marine Mammals of the Holarctic: Collection of Scientific Papers after the Third International Conference, Moscow: KMK, 2004, pp. 362–368.
Meschersky, I.G., Shpak, O.V., Litovka, D.I., et al., A genetic analysis of the beluga whale Delphinapterus leucas (Cetacea: Monodontidae) from summer aggregations in the Russian Far East, Russ. J. Mar. Biol., 2013, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 125–135.
Nambu, H., Ishikawa, H., and Yamada, T.K., Records of the western gray whale Eschrichtius robustus: its distribution and migration, Jap. Cetol., 2010, vol. 20, pp. 21–29.
Nishiwaki, M. and Kasuya, T., Recent record of gray whales in the adjacent waters of Japan and consideration on its migration, Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst., 1970, no. 22, pp. 29–37.
Omura, H., Possible migration route of the gray whale on the coast of Japan, Sci. Rep. Whales Res. Inst., 1974, no. 26, pp. 1–14.
Reilly, S.B., Bannister, J.L., Best, P.B., et al., Eschrichtius robustus, IUCN Red List Threatened Species, Version 2013.2. www.iucnredlist.org
Rozen, S. and Skaletsky, H., Primer3 on the www for general users and for biologist programmers, in Bioinformatics Methods and Protocols: Methods in Molecular Biology, Krawetz, S. and Misener, S., Eds., Totowa, New Jersey: Humana Press, 2000, pp. 365–386.
Shpak, O.V., Kuznetsova, D.M., and Rozhnov, V.V., Observation of the gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) in the Laptev Sea, Biology Bulletin, 2013, vol. 40, no. 9, pp. 797–800.
Steeves, T.E., Darling, J.D., Rosel, P.E., et al., Preliminary analysis of mitochondrial DNA variation in a southern feeding group of eastern north pacific gray whales, Conserv. Genet., 2001, vol. 2, pp. 379–384.
Swartz, S.L., Taylor, B.L., and Rugh, D.J., Gray whale Eschrichtius robustus population and stock identity, Mamm. Rev., 2006, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 66–84.
Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., et al., MEGA5: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum parsimony method, Mol. Biol. Evol., 2011, vol. 28, pp. 2731–2739.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © I.G. Meschersky, M.A. Kuleshova, D.I. Litovka, V.N. Burkanov, R.D. Andrews, G.A. Tsidulko, V.V. Rozhnov, V.Yu. Ilyashenko, 2015, published in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, Seriya Biologicheskaya, 2015, No. 1, pp. 42–51.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Meschersky, I.G., Kuleshova, M.A., Litovka, D.I. et al. Occurrence and distribution of mitochondrial lineages of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in Russian Far Eastern seas. Biol Bull Russ Acad Sci 42, 34–42 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062359014060077
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1062359014060077