Primer Genetic Structure And Molecular Phylogeography Of Sichuan Snub-nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus Roxellanae)

Sichuan snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellanae) is endemic to China. As a result of spending most of their times on trees, their habitat is closely bound up with forest. But the human's action such as deforesting and capture etc split their habitat greatly. Snub-nosed golden monkey currently threatened by habitat loss, fragmentation and human persecution. In order to devise efficiency conservation and management strategies for this endangered species, it is necessary to understand the genetic structure and molecular phylogeography.In this investigation, mitochondria DNA control-region sequences were used to estimate phylogeography patterns (historical patterns underlying contemporary distribution) and the genetic structure. Sixty animals from different regions were sequenced over 379bp of mtDNA, resulting 12 haplotypes. According to the nucleotide divergence (0.033) which is lower than that of panda (0.06) and the topology of phylogenetic trees, we can draw a conclusion that snub-nosed golden monkey must have suffered a bottle neck, which is correspond to the result of protein electrophoresis made by Li Haipeng et al. The minimum spanning tree indicates at least in part that the common ancestor of snub-nosed golden monkey living today might live in the Minshan Mountain during the bottleneck. AMOVA shows there are significant differentiation among regions resulted from the clear genetic break, that is why we should consider the three geographic units as three separate management units.