Taxonomic identity of Microtus qazvinensis Golenishchev et al. 2003 (Rodentia, Arvicolinae) from the northwest of Iran

• Published in: Mammal research Vol. 60; no. 1; pp. 71 - 79
• Main Authors: Mahmoudi, Ahmad, Darvish, Jamshid, Aliabadian, Mansour
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 2015; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Subjects: Animal Ecology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Evolutionary Biology; Fish & Wildlife Biology & Management; Life Sciences; Original Paper; Zoology; Iran; Turkey (country); Iran; Social voles; Phylogeny
• ISSN: 2199-2401; 2199-241X
• DOI: 10.1007/s13364-014-0205-x

The Qazvin vole Microtus qazvinensis, an endemic species of Iran, shows an obvious similarity in both morphological and karyological traits to other members of the “guentheri” species group. Such similarities challenge the species status of this taxon. In this study, the relationships of social voles, and in particular M. qazvinensis, were reevaluated based on phylogeny of the mitochondrial gene for cytochrome b and morphological, karyological, and morphometric data. The Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood trees showed the same topology. The genetic distance between the sister species M. qazvinensis (Iran) and Microtus dogramacii (Turkey) was 2.8 %, which is comparable to other sister taxa pairs within Microtus. We confirmed that M. qazvinensis, while having a close relationship to M. dogramacii on molecular trees, shows differences to other species from the guentheri group. As a result, our data support the taxonomic position of M. qazvinensis as a valid species, found in a separate geographical region, within the guentheri group.