6th Annual Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
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Poster #80 Phylogeography of the Southern Red-backed Vole (Myodes gapperi) Kelly Novak, Samantha Todd, and J. Alden Lackey Faculty Mentor: Amy M. Runck Phylogeographic analyses are being conducted on the boreal forest-associated species, the southern red-backed vole (Myodes gapperi). Morphological and sequence data from the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene indicate that there are three distinct lineages of these voles in North America: east, west, and central. These results are consistent with the fossil record and suggest that this species diversified in separate refugia during the Pleistocene and subsequently post-glacially colonized the high latitudes of North America. Additional analyses were conducted to look for contemporary gene flow among these different lineages using microsatellite DNA, which are repeating sequences of 2-6 base pairs of DNA. The microsatellite DNA was amplified using 6 different primer pairs from populations across northeastern North America, which represents individuals from each lineage. These data are compared with the phylogeographic patterns established with the cytochrome b and morphological data previously generated. These comparisons will be used to test our hypothesis that individuals from the three different lineages are not interbreeding and have diversified into different species. |
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