Molecular Ecology Of Wolves In Northwest China Based On Microsatellite And Mitochondrial Genes

The wolf(Canis lupus) which has been widely distributed in Eurasia and North America, is the largest existing canine. In China, the habitat of the wolf is fragmented. And they are mainly distributed in remote areas, such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, western Sichuan and northwest Yunnan. As human disturbance and habitat destruction, the survival of the wolf is becoming more and more serious. And the current situation attracted public concerns.We analyzed the genetic diversity among five geographic populations of wolf from Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia and Mongolia by using 14 microsatellite loci, the part sequence of mtDNA Control region HVRI and cytochrome b(Cytb). Some aspects of molecular ecology among the five geographic populations were analyzed by the methods of microsatellite DNA and mitochondria DNA. The main researches were shown as follows:1. 14 microsatellite loci were elected for the evalution of genetic diversity in five geographic populations of wolves. The result shows that the number of 14 loci alleles ranged between 5 and 20, averagely 9.786, polymorphism information content PIC is 0.740. The averagely number of alleles was 5.6 in these geographic populations. The mean observed heterozygosity and expected heterozygosity is 0.6778 and 0.6738 respectively.2. Part of the gene sequence of HVRI and Cytb of wolves.were analyzed from five geographic populations. The results show that 20 haplotypes in sequence of HVRI and 19 haplotypes in sequence of Cytb were found severally. The average nucleotide diversity was 0.1084 and 0.0065 respectively.The variant sites accounted for 7.90% and 10.18% of the total length in the sequence separately.3. The clustering results of the STRUCTURE software, shows that when K = 2, the genetic structure of five geographic populations is the most clearly. According to the results of the STRUCTURE, the AMOVA software was used to analysis the geographic variation of five geographic populations. Results show that 11% of genetic variation existed within groups, 5% of genetic variation existed between groups within the population, and most of genetic variation in the population(84%). This suggests that the genetic variation of Chinese wolf populations hasno significant genetic differentiation, but has some genetic differentiation between the groups.4. The phylogenetic tree was constructed by the date of microsatellite and mitochondria in the five geographical populations. The results show that the geographic populations of Qinghai and Tibet cluster together, and the geographic populations of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Mongolia cluster together.5. According to the principle of Cytb gene’s molecular clock, wecalculate the divergence time among five geographic populations.The results show that five geographic populations were divided into two branches in the 1.175-1.3 million years ago. These results may be related to the uplift of Tibetan Plateau.6. From the perspective of conservation genetics, we suggest that wolves in Chinese northwestcan be divided into two groups for protection and management. Two groups are called as Inner mongolia-Xinjiang area and Tibetan area.