Study On Genetic Diversity Of Rhesus Monkeys In Southeast Margin Of The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Rhesus monkeys(Macaca mulatta)as the most abundant and geographically distributed species of macaques,are found in more than 60% of China's provinces.However,little is known about the genetic diversity of the wild population of rhesus monkeys along the southeastern Tibetan Plateau.In this experiment,a total of 294 wild rhesus monkey feces samples from 11 geographical regions in four provinces in the southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in China were collected by non-invasive sampling method.Based on the partial sequence of mtDNA D-loop region of wild rhesus monkey and the complete sequence of Cyt b gene as molecular markers.The genetic diversity of rhesus monkeys in southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau was evaluated,and the mitochondrial Cyt b gene was used as a subspecies of rhesus monkey subspecies to classify subspecies of rhesus monkeys in wild conditions at molecular level.It provides a theoretical basis for the effective protection and utilization of genetic resources of wild rhesus monkeys in the southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.The main results are as follows:1)This study measured and analyzed mitochondrial DNA control region sequences from 294 different rhesus monkeys from 11 geographical populations in the southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.A total of 84 variable site s(17.78%)were identified and defined.Of the 36 haplotypes,21 of them were reported for the first time.Of all the haplotypes,only two haplotypes were shared haplotypes between populations(JC1,DB4),and the remaining 34 haplotypes were unique haplotypes to each population.2)The genetic diversity parameters of rhesus monkeys in 11 geographical regions in the southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau were calculated by DNAsp 5.0 software.The results showed that the nucleotide diversity(Pi)value is 0.0303±0.0031,The value of haplotype diversity(Hd)is 0.911±0.007,and the average number of nucleotide differences(K)is 13.941,indicating that the genetic diversity of the whole large population is lower.Among these regions,all the Pi value of Leiwuqi,Tibet(LWQ);Jiangda,Tibet(JD);Yushu,Qinghai(YS)populations are 0,which have the lowest level of genetic diversity.3)A phylogenetic tree was constructed based on a total of 36 haplotypes in the partial sequence of the mtDNA D-loop control region of the rhesus mitochondrial DNA.The results of phylogenetic analysis indicate that the rhesus monkey populations in the southeast margin of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau is divided into two major branches: Clade I and Clade II,of which Clade I is likely to come from M.m.vestita,and Clade II is come from M.m.lasiotis.4)The phylogenetic tree constructed by using the mitochondrial Cyt b gene sequence as a DNA subspecies classification barcode indicates that the rhesus monkey populations of this study is clearly clustered into two major haplogroups,one of which corresponds to the Tibetan subspecies(M.m.vestita),and the other corresponds to the subspecies of M.m.lasiotis.This suggests that the Cyt b gene can be used as a reliable DNA barcode for the subspecies identification of rhesus monkey.