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Phylogeography of the Asian lesser white-toothed shrew, Crocidura shantungensis, in East Asia: role of the Korean Peninsula as refugium for small mammals

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Abstract

Many peninsulas in the temperate zone played an important role as refugia of various flora and fauna, and the southern Korean Peninsula also served as a refugium for many small mammals in East Asia during the Pleistocene. The Asian lesser white-toothed shrew, Crocidura shantungensis, is a widely distributed species in East Asia, and is an appropriate model organism for exploring the role of the Korean Peninsula as a refugium of small mammals. Here, we investigated phylogenetic relationships and genetic diversity based on the entire sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (1140 bp). A Bayesian tree for 98 haplotypes detected in 228 C. shantungensis specimens from East Asia revealed the presence of three major groups with at least 5 subgroups. Most haplotypes were distributed according to their geographic proximity. Pairwise FST’s and analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed a high degree of genetic differentiation and variance among regions as well as among populations within region, implying little gene flow among local populations. Genetic evidence from South Korean islands, Jeju-do Island of South Korea, and Taiwan leads us to reject the hypothesis of recent population expansion. We observed unique island-type genetic characteristics consistent with geographic isolation and resultant genetic drift. Phylogeographic inference, together with estimates of genetic differentiation and diversity, suggest that the southern most part the Korean Peninsula, including offshore islands, played an important role as a refugium for C. shantungensis during the Pleistocene. However, the presence of several refugia on the mainland of northeast Asia is also proposed.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Thomas W. Sappington, USDA-ARS, for his critical comments and edits on this manuscript. We would like to express our deep gratitude to all cooperators who donated the Asian lesser white-toothed shrew samples for this study including Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife, National Institute of Biological Resources, Korea National Institute of Health, Tunghai University, National Taiwan University, and Shandong University at Weihai. This study was supported by a Grant (2010–0025751) from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and partially supported by the Research Institute for Veterinary Science, Seoul National University. Also, this study was supported by the Major International (Regional) Joint Research Project of National Sciences Foundation of China (NSFC, 31110103910).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Conservation Genome Resource Bank for Korean Wildlife, College of Veterinary Medicine and Research Institute for Veterinary Science, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826, Republic of Korea

    Seo-Jin Lee, Mi-Sook Min & Hang Lee

  2. National Institute of Biological Resources, 42, Hwangyeong-ro, Seo-gu, Incheon, 22689, Republic of Korea

    Sang-Hoon Han

  3. Department of Life Science, Tunghai University, No.1727, Section 4, Taiwan Boulevard, Xitun District, Taichung, 40704, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Liang-Kong Lin

  4. Department of Life Science, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Da’an District, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Y. Kirk Lin

  5. Marine College, Shandong University at Weihai, 180 Wenhua W Road, Huancui Qu, Weihai, Shandong Sheng, 264209, China

    Yuchun Li

  6. National Institute of Health, Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Cheongju, Chungbuk Province, 28159, Republic of Korea

    E-Hyun Shin

  7. Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Kyung Seok Kim

  8. DNA Analysis Division, Seoul Institute, National Forensic Service, Seoul, 08636, Republic of Korea

    Mu-Yeong Lee

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Lee, SJ., Lee, MY., Lin, LK. et al. Phylogeography of the Asian lesser white-toothed shrew, Crocidura shantungensis, in East Asia: role of the Korean Peninsula as refugium for small mammals. Genetica 146, 211–226 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-018-0014-2

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