Darevskia Raddei Species Complex Based on Mtdna

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Phylogeography of the Darevskia raddei species complex based on mtDNA S. Freitas1, A. Perera1, D. J. Harris1, M. Arakelyan2, F. Danielyan2, C. CortP, M. A. Carretero1 1CIBIO-UP, Centro de Investigac;ao em Biodiversidade e Recursos Geneticos, Campus Agrario de Vairao, 4485-661 Vairao, Portugal e-mails:[email protected];[email protected];[email protected]; carrete- [email protected] zYerevan State University, Alek Manukyan, 1, Yerevan 0025, Armenia e-mail: [email protected] 3Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Universita di Firenze, Sezione di Zoologia "La Specola", Via Romana 17, 50125, Firenze, Italy e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: The genus Darevskia is a lacertid group radiating and diversifying in the Caucasus region. The studies on the phylogeny of this group started early, however, the phylogeographic pattern within this genus is far to be complete. Dareskia raddei has been described for Armenia and adjacent S Georgia, E Turkey and N Iran. D. nairensis from Armenia is sometimes considered conspecific although evidences from mor- phologyand proteins are conflicting. Here, we assess the phylogeographic relationships based on the analysis of an extensive sampling of specimens morphologically assigned to both species throughout most of the range using the Cytochrome b mitochondrial marker. Results suggest that D. raddei is paraphyletic to D. nairensis for mtDNA, confirming previous evi- dence of proteins. Nevertheless, the group portschinskii-valentini is confirmed as the sister clade of the raddei-nairensis complex. Within this complex, strong phylogeographic structure is observed. Three main clades are observed: one comprising individuals from Georgia and the most northern and western Armenia, the second comprising individuals from Southern Armenia, and the last with one individual from Iran. The Darevskia unisexualis individuals (i.e. D. raddei and D. valentini parthenogenetic hybrids) analysed in this study fall within the first clade. Because of that we can say that the putative parental D. raddei populations may have been individuals present in between Georgia and the most western part of the current range distribution of D. raddei. The overall pattern suggests an expansion of D. raddei from SE to the rest of the range which is correlated with the recent paleogeographic history of the region..

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