systematics and biogeography of the great basin pocket

79
UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations 1-1-1994 Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse, Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse, Perognathus parvus Perognathus parvus Carolyn Sue Ferrell University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/rtds Repository Citation Repository Citation Ferrell, Carolyn Sue, "Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse, Perognathus parvus" (1994). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 446. http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/9m3y-u5z4 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected].

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Page 1: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

1-1-1994

Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse, Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse,

Perognathus parvus Perognathus parvus

Carolyn Sue Ferrell University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/rtds

Repository Citation Repository Citation Ferrell, Carolyn Sue, "Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket mouse, Perognathus parvus" (1994). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 446. http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/9m3y-u5z4

This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected].

Page 2: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

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Page 3: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket
Page 4: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Systematics and Biogeography of the Great Basin Pocket Mouse,

Perognathus parvus

by

Carolyn Sue Ferrell

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Science

in

Biology

Department of Biological Sciences University of Nevada, Las Vegas

May 1995

Page 5: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

DMI Number: 1374875

UMI Microform 1374875 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103

Page 6: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

The thesis of Carolyn S. Ferrell for the degree of Master of Science in Biology is approved.

Chairperson, Brett R. Riddle, Ph.D.

Examining Committee Member, Peter Starkweather, Ph.D.

/ /Examining Committee Member, Stanley Smith, Ph.D.

Graduate facu lty Representative, Rodney Metcalf, Ph.D.

Interim Dean of the Graduate College, Cheryl Bowles, Ed . D .

University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 1995

Page 7: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

ABSTRACT

The Great Basin pocket mouse, Perognathusparvus, has a distribution that

extends across three geological regions: Columbia Plateau, Great Basin and Colorado

Plateau. Limited ability of P. parvus to disperse over large areas and across areas of

unsuitable habitat provide a foundation for studying biogeographic vicariance hypotheses

related to its distribution. Vicariance hypotheses involving late Tertiary geotectonic

events and dispersal hypotheses of Pleistocene glacial-interglacial climatic cycles that may

be responsible for phylogeographic structure in P. parvus were tested using mitochondrial

DNA (mtDNA) sequences and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLPs).

High levels of sequence divergence support the hypothesis of late Tertiary isolation of

Columbia Plateau from Great Basin populations of P. parvus due to late Miocene uplift of

the Blue Mountains. Other species exhibit distributions similar to P. parvus and may show

the same type of phylogeographic disjunction between populations from the Columbia

Plateau and populations from the Great Basin.

Page 8: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Table of Contents

A B ST R A C T ............................................................................................................................... iii

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ v

LIST OF FIGU RES.................................................................................................................... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................ vii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1Perognathus p a rv u s ............................................................ 5Fossil Record of Heteromyids and Geologic H istory ...................................................9Molecular Data ................................................................................................................14

CHAPTER 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS ....................................................................17Specimen Collection........................................................................................................ 17DNA Extraction............................................................................................................... 17Polymerase Chain Reaction ...........................................................................................19DNA Sequences............................................................................................................... 20Restriction Fragment Length Polym orphism s............................................................ 21

CHAPTER 3 RESULTS .......................................................................................................... 26Sequence R esu lts .............................................................................................................26RFLP R esults....................................................................................................................31

CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................... 46Future R esearch............................................................................................................... 52Conclusions...................................................................................................................... 53

CHAPTER 5 Perognathus alticola and P. xanthonotus ..................................................... 55

APPENDIX I ...............................................................................................................................60

BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................ 61

Page 9: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Karyotype characteristics of P. p a r v u s .....................................................................10Table 2 Summary of nucleotide base substitutions................................................................27Table 3 Genetic distance matrix from mtDNA sequences ..................................................30Table 4 Composite haplotypes of specimens from the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau . . 32Table 5 Composite haplotypes of specimens from the Columbia P la te a u ........................ 35Table 6 Matrix of genetic distances and standard errors: Great Basin/Colo. Plat 37Table 7 Matrix of genedc distances and standard errors: Columbia Plateau ................. 41Table 8 Haplotype and nucleotide diversity values .............................................................44Table 9 Monte Carlo simulation X2 values and P-values ....................................................45Table 10 Karyotype characteristics of P. alticola and P. xan th o n o tu s .............................. 56

v

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Distribution of sagebrush-steppe and g rass land ........................................................6Figure 2 Distribution of Perognathus parvus .......................................................................... 7Figure 3 Phylogenetic tree from Riddle (1995) ................................................................... 28Figure 4 Estimated phylogeny of exemplars from Riddle (1995) ..................................... 29Figure 5 Distribution of haplotypes ........................................................................................ 36Figure 6 UPGMA dendrogram of Great Basin/Colorado Plateau haplotypes...................38Figure 7 UPGMA dendrogram of Columbia Plateau haplotypes ....................................... 40Figure 8 Distribution of haplotypes and composite populations ....................................... 43Figure 9 Distribution of Perognathus alticola and P. xanthonotus ..................................... 57

Page 11: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was conducted from January 1992 to January 1995.1 would like to

thank the members of my graduate committee, Dr. Brett Riddle, Dr. Peter Starkweather,

Dr. Stan Smith and Dr. Rodney Metcalf, for providing input on this thesis and for taking

the time to be on my committee. I would also like to thank Jeff Drumm, Bruce Ferrell

and Tyler Ferrell for helping me in the field, David Nickle and David Orange for

laboratory assistance as well as useful discussions about the research, and I would

especially like to thank Jeff Drumm for moral support throughout the progress of this

research. Thanks to CMBS and BBMilan for their hospitality and good food.

This research was funded by NSF grant BSR-9107520 awarded to Dr. Brett

Riddle and other grants awarded to Carolyn Ferrell by the Graduate Student Association

of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund Grant

from the American Museum of Natural History; a Summer Research Enhancement Grant

and a Travel Grant both from the National Science Foundation, EPSCoR Women in

Science.

Approval for experimentation on vertebrate animals was obtained from the

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

(Protocol # R701-1290-051).

Page 12: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Chapter 1

Introduction

Systematics is defined as "the scientific study of kinds of diversity of organisms

and of any and all relationships among them" (Simpson, 1961). A major task of

systematics is to classify organisms in a logical fashion and determine through

comparison what the unique properties of taxa are and also what properties taxa have in

common. Included in this task is the attempt to recover phylogenetic relationships

among organisms and to reconstruct a phylogeny based on these unique and common

properties. Phylogenetic systematics (cladistics-Hennig, 1966) uses branching points on

a phylogenetic tree to explain the evolutionary process of speciation (cladogenesis) while

ignoring anagenesis (Mayr and Ashlock, 1991). Cladistics has become the major

approach to recovering phylogenetic relationships among organisms (Brooks, 1981;

Brooks, 1990; Brooks and McLennan, 1991; Brooks and Wiley, 1985; Crisci and

Stuessy, 1980; Farris, 1983; Felsenstein, 1983; Miyamoto and Cracraft, 1991; Nelson

and Platnick, 1981; Wiley, 1981; Wiley et al., 1991).

Systematics has uses that are important not only in the recovery of phylogenies,

but in other fields of biology as well by providing a classification scheme for

populations, species and higher taxa used by all other scientists in biology. Without this

classification scheme, it would be impossible to explain interactions that-are studied in

1

Page 13: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

ecology and behavior (Brooks and McLennan, 1991).

The nature of species has been a controversial subject for many years. Early

definitions of species used similarity of types as the criterion. Later, Buffon developed

the idea of sterility as a basis for species (Mayr and Ashlock, 1991). His idea then

became the principle on which the Biological Species Concept (BSC) was developed.

The BSC requires that species be made up of reproductive communities that are isolated

from one another. A major problem with this concept is that it does not allow for a test

for reproductive barriers in allopatric populations. A more fundamental problem is that

reproductive isolation is not necessarily concordant with phylogenetic relationships

(McKitrick and Zink, 1988).

Other concepts that have been developed have not used a biological criterion but

have been based on types. The Typological Species Concept (TSC) states that there are

several universal types. This concept does not reflect relationships among organisms,

and it does not take into account phenotypic plasticity or sexual dimorphism within a

species. The Nominalistic Species Concept (NSC) states that only individuals exist and

that species are abstractions created by people. The NSC precludes any type of

classification, and is therefore useless to biologists trying to determine patterns of

behavior or distribution (Mayr and Ashlock, 1991).

The species concepts that have become most useful to systematists are the

Evolutionary Species Concept (ESC) and the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC)

(Avise, 1994; Avise and Ball, 1990; Cracraft, 1983). The ESC states that a species is a

lineage that is evolving separately from others and has it's own unitary evolutionary role

Page 14: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

3

and tendencies. This concept does not use reproductive criteria and so can include

allopatric populations. However, it does not take into account genetic variation among

populations. Such populations would be considered separate lineages and therefore

separate species. The PSC defines a species as a monophyletic group composed of "the

smallest diagnosable cluster of individual organisms within which there is a parental

pattern of ancestry and descent" (Cracraft, 1983). A monophyletic group is one in which

all members can be traced back to a single most recent common ancestor. This definition

seems to be the one most accepted by phylogenetic systematists. It too has problems, but

the requirement of monophyly is a fundamental component of cladistic principles. The

issue of monophyly involves the problem of determining what type of evidence is

required to diagnose a monophyletic group. Shared, derived characters, or

synapomoiphies, are the only type of characters that can be used to define a

monophyletic group. Shared ancestral characters can not be used in the construction of a

phylogeny because the common ancestor of the clade may not truly be the most recent

common ancestor.

Biogeography is the study of distributions of organisms both past and present

(Brown and Gibson, 1983). Biogeographers attempt to understand and describe patterns

of distribution, limits to distribution, and the roles of climate and topography in

determining the distribution of an organism (Brown and Gibson, 1983; Vrba, 1992).

Early biogeographers noticed several basic distributional patterns, including: the

observation that all taxa are endemic or restricted to a given area; that certain kinds of

organisms tend to occur together; and that similar kinds of organisms sometimes occur in

Page 15: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

widely separated areas (Brown and Gibson, 1983). The underlying goal of modem

biogeography is to explain the causes of these patterns. Several scientists have made

contributions to the task of explaining distributions, most notably Charles Darwin.

Darwin (1859) made observations of biological variation between organisms from

separate islands in the Galapagos. He explained that this variation was due to natural

selection on certain traits that were advantageous to individual populations on different

islands. A. R. Wallace observed gaps in the distributions of animals in Southeast Asia.

As he got further south, the fauna changed and became more like the fauna in Australia

(Brown and Gibson, 1983). Both Darwin's and Wallace's observations involve a

dispersal explanation to account for the distributional patterns.

Explanations of biogeographic patterns became more robust in the 1960s and

1970s due to the acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics and continental drift (Brown

and Gibson, 1983). Acceptance of this theory made it possible for distributions to be

explained by vicariance events rather than dispersal. Vicariance events (i.e. movements

of tectonic plates, orogeny, river formation, desertification, glaciation) isolate once

continuous populations from each other, thus preventing gene flow between the two new

populations. Prolonged isolation will eventually lead to a unique evolutionary trajectory

for each of these populations and may result in speciation via an allopatric or peripatric

mode.

Phylogeography involves the study of the distribution of geographically localized

genealogical lineages and the processes governing those distributions (Avise, 1994).

Nuclear genotypes and mtDNA haplotypes are geographically localized in several

Page 16: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

5

species. In general, differences in the ability of organisms to disperse and fragmentation

of suitable habitat exert strong influences on patterns of mtDNA phylogeographic

structure, and localization of mtDNA haplotypes often reflects limited gene flow among

populations (Avise, 1994). Intrinsic factors influencing distributional patterns of mtDNA

haplotypes also include rates of evolution. Rates of evolution can significantly affect the

amount of diversity and divergence in a taxon. MtDNA evolves at a rate faster than most

other single copy DNA (Vawter and Brown, 1986), but within the mtDNA genome,

different genes are evolving at different rates (Riddle, 1995). Therefore, sampling of

different gene regions or different genomes may reveal different patterns of diversity and

divergence within a single taxon.

Perognathus parvus

The genus Perognathus (family Heteromyidae, subfamily Perognathinae) consists

of arid-adapted rodents that are endemic to North America and whose range extends

throughout the desert shrub-steppe and grassland-steppe communities of the west (Figure

1) (Hall, 1981; Schmidley et al., 1993). Perognathus parvus is a geographically

widespread species that is distributed throughout the Great Basin, Columbia Plateau and

onto the Colorado Plateau (Figure 2).

The Perognathus parvus species group was originally thought to comprise the

species Perognathus parvus, P. alticola, and P. xanthonotus (Osgood, 1900; Williams,

1978) However, it is now postulated that P. xanthonotus is a subspecies of P. parvus

based on biochemical data (Sulentich, 1983; Williams, 1993).

The Great Basin pocket mouse was originally described by Peale in 1848 as

Page 17: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

6

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Page 18: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

7

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Page 19: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

8

Cricetodipus parvus, based on a holotype from Oregon (Merriam, 1889). It has

subsequently had a complex nomenclatural history. Baird distinguished Perognathus

from Cricetodipus based on body size and whether or not there was fur on the soles of

the feet. Osgood (1900) assigned the name Perognathus parvus based on Peale's

description and the fact that the Wilkes expedition, of which Peale was a member, and

the location where Baird caught his specimen were determined to be the same.

Most research conducted on Perognathus parvus has consisted of ecological and

physiological studies (Cramer and Chapman, 1990; French, 1993; Kenagy and Banes,

1984; O'Farrell et al., 1975; Price and Brown, 1983; Small and Verts, 1983; Verts and

Carraway, 1986). Patton (1967) and Williams (1978) studied the karyological affinities of

P. parvus; but did not formally propose inter- or intraspecific relationships. No studies

have addressed the historical biogeography of this widespread species.

Patton (1967) first described the karyotype of P. parvus without suggesting any

phylogenetic hypotheses about it's evolutionary history relative to other members of the

genus Perognathus or intraspecific relationships among subspecies. Williams (1978)

examined the karyotypes of several subspecies of P. parvus as well as P. alticola and P.

xanthonotus, which were at the time considered closely related sister taxa and members

of the Parvus species group. He found that P. parvus columbianus from the Columbia

Basin had a karyotype that was extremely divergent from the karyotypes of P. parvus

subspecies that had been collected in the Great Basin (Table 1). The high fundamental

number (FN) and a submetacentric rather than an acrocentric Y chromosome in P. p_arvus

columbianus but not other subspecies of P. parvus represent derived traits, and indicate

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9

Table 1. Karyotype characteristics of Perognathus parvus spp. from the Columbia Plateau and Great Basin/Colorado Plateau (Williams, 1978). Haplotype of P. p. columbianus is divergent from other subspecies of P. parvus based on high fundamental number and X and Y chromosome. 2N=diploid number, FN=fundamental number, BA=biarmed chromosome, A=uniarmed chromosome, ST=subtelocentric, SM=submetacentric, A=acrocentric.

Autosomal, pairs

Subspecies m EM BA A X Y.

P. parvus trumbullensis 54 70 8 18 ST A

P. parvus olivaceous 54 74 11 15 ST A

P. parvus clarus 54 76 12 14 ST A

P. parvus columbianus 54 106 0 26 SiM SM

Page 21: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

10

independent evolution and divergence of P. parvus columbianus from other subspecies of

P. parvus (Hafner and Hafner, 1983). He also found that P. alticola and P. xanthonotus

had karyotypes that were identical to those found in P. parvus from the Great Basin.

Fossil Record of Heteromyids and Geologic History

Members of the family Heteromyidae first appear in the mid Oligocene fossil

record during the Orellan North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) (Wahlert,

1993). Thus, the systematic and biogeographic history of members of the family should

reflect various aspects of geological, climatic, and vegetational history of western North

America during the past 30 million years.

The genus Perognathus also has a long history in North America. Fossil records

of Perognathus occur from the Miocene to the Pleistocene in western North America

(Wahlert, 1993). The first appearance in the fossil record is of a specimen from the early

Hemingfordian (mid Miocene) of the John Day formation of northern Oregon (James,

1963). However, it is thought that the subfamilies Heteromyinae and Perognathinae were

not yet clearly separated in the fossil record by the early Miocene (Wilson, 1960). A

specimen of P. maldei, now extinct, from the late Pliocene of Idaho is believed to most

closely resemble modem P. parvus, and it is thought to be ancestral to modem P. parvus,

which first appears in the fossil record during the Rancholabrean NALMA (mid

Pleistocene) of Idaho. There are slight differences between the fossils found in the John

Day formation of northern Oregon and the Idaho fossils, but they could be

phylogenetically related (Zakrzewski, 1969).

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11

The region in which the oldest fossils of Perognathus occur is the Columbia

Plateau (James, 1963; Zakrzewski, 1969). The Columbia Plateau formed as a series of

basaltic volcanic plains during the mid to late Miocene, approximately the time

corresponding to the fossil record. As basalt accumulated in the Pasco Basin of central

Washington, tectonic deformation was taking place, resulting in a complex folding pattern

throughout the Columbia Plateau. In the late Miocene, the longest structure formed

during the height of volcanic activity was the Blue Mountains. This mountain chain

borders the Columbia Plateau along most of its southern boundary and separates it from

the Oregon Plateau. The High Lava Plains arose during the late Miocene and form a

geological transition between the Columbia Plateau and Great Basin. It separates an area

of declining volcanic activity on the Columbia Plateau from an area of tectonic extension

in the Great Basin (Christiansen and McKee, 1977). The Oregon Plateau is part of the

High Lava Plains and forms the northernmost region of the Basin and Range Province. It

is bordered on the north by the Blue Mountains and on the south by the Orevada rift

(Carlson and Hart, 1987). Fossil records of Perognathus from the Oregon Plateau are

reported from the Barstovian NALMA (mid Miocene). Basaltic volcanism in the Steens

Mountain area of southern Oregon was at its peak during the mid Miocene (Carlson and

Hart, 1987). Volcanism in the Steens Mountain area continued sporadically until

approximately 11 mya, and on the southeastern edge of the Oregon Plateau, volcanism has

continued until the Holocene. This southeastern edge forms the border between the

Oregon Plateau and the Great Basin. Late Miocene basalts from the Steens Mountain area

of southern Oregon are similar in composition to those found in the northern Great Basin,

Page 23: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

12

and it is thought that they are related (Carlson and Hart, 1987).

Geologically the Great Basin is relatively young. The Great Basin had

considerable tectonic relief due to late Cretaceous and Tertiary orogeny, but the Basin and

Range topography did not exist until the late Miocene (Christiansen and McKee, 1977).

Volcanism appears to have begun along the northern axis of the Basin and Range

province. By 17 to 14 mya the Great Basin already had considerable tectonic relief.

Much of the surface of the region was covered by 14 to 12 mya. Numerous ashflow tuffs

of early Miocene age in Nevada indicate that there was little topographic relief comparable

to present-day Basin and Range topography (Christiansen and McKee, 1977). Although

much of the volcanic activity occurred prior to this time, the Great Basin has remained

tectonically active to present day. Areas of seismicity in this region are relegated primarily

to the eastern and southwestern edges, the Wasatch and Sierra Nevada ranges,

respectively, which form the east and west borders of the Great Basin.

Ancestral members of the lineage giving rise to extant Perognathus parvus were

distributed throughout most of the Columbia and Oregon Plateaus by tire mid Miocene

(Wahlert, 1993). Perognathus parvus fossils did not appear in the Great Basin fossil

record until the Rancholabrean NALMA (mid Pleistocene). An ancestor to P. parvus may

have evolved on the Columbia Plateau and subsequently migrated southward into the

Great Basin prior to the uplift of the Blue Mountains. One would predict that, based on

the geological and fossil records, the Blue Mountains uplift presented a significant barrier

to dispersal. This barrier would have isolated northern from southern populations as long

ago as the late Miocene. The loss of gene flow between populations from these areas

Page 24: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

13

would have resulted in separate evolutionary trajectories for northern versus southern

populations of P. parvus. Williams' (1978) karyotype data support the hypothesis of a

separation of northern from southern populations.

P. parvus has long been postulated to be a single, widespread species. However,

several alternative vicariance hypotheses can be constructed relative to the response of P.

parvus to geological and climatic history. If P. parvus was split into two or more

geographically isolated populations by geological or climatic perturbations, I would

predict phylogeographic disjunction among populations and geographic variation

corresponding to geologic formations within the range of P. parvus.

Three alternative biogeographic models may be used to suggest possible

geographic mtDNA haplotype variation within and among populations of P. parvus on the

Columbia Plateau and in the Great Basin. First, late Tertiary geotectonic vicariance may be

responsible for isolating Columbia Plateau from Great Basin populations of P. parvus.

Second, late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climatic cycles causing expansion and

contraction of areas of suitable habitat may be responsible for isolating Columbia Plateau

and Great Basin populations. Finally, P. parvus populations on the Columbia Plateau may

have shifted their range southward during each Pleistocene glaciation in response to

decreased winter temperatures and the southward shift of shrub-steppe habitat followed by

northward expansion during interglacials. This model would predict no detectable "deep"

phylogenetic splits between Columbia Plateau and Great Basin populations.

In this study, I have addressed the following questions: 1) How is mtDNA

variation apportioned among populations of Perognathus parvusl 2) To what extent does

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14

geographic variation in mtDNA distribution and divergence differentiate among the three

models presented above?

Molecular Data

The hypotheses stated above were tested using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)

sequences and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (RFLPs). The mitochondrial

genome contains non-recombining, maternally inherited DNA that evolves faster than

other single copy DNA (Vawter and Brown, 1986). Gene arrangement in mtDNA

appears generally stable, and nearly the entire genome is a coding region so that

hypervariable regions such as introns are not part of the data set (Avise, 1994). The

amount of variability in the mtDNA genome is largely due to its high rate of mutation,

thus it provides substantial numbers of characters for comparisons between closely related

species and populations. Many studies have empirically demonstrated geographic

variation within and among populations using mtDNA (Avise et al., 1987; Avise et al.,

1988; Avise, 1992; Moritz et al., 1987; Riddle et al., 1993).

Molecular data have several attributes that provide an advantage over

morphological data when reconstructing phylogenetic hypotheses. Morphological data

represent a small subset of genetic information that can be environmentally plastic and may

not reflect the true evolutionary relationships of organisms. Morphological characters in

some taxa may not be sufficient for inferring a robust phylogeny, and certain characters

can be misleading because they represent special environmentally induced adaptations that

may not have a genetic basis. Molecular data, on the other hand, have a distinct

Page 26: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

15

advantage over morphological data in that the data are sampled directly from the genome

of the organism, thus ensuring that characters are hereditary (Avise, 1994; Hillis, 1987).

Genomes provide an enormous amount of information. The genome codes for proteins

and other cellular material, as well as retaining a record of evolutionary change in its

nucleotides. Molecular characters can provide an extensive, detailed data set, limited only

by the number of nucleotide pairs in the DNA, that permits the reconstruction of a well-

resolved phylogeny that can either refute or support a phylogeny that was constructed

using morphological characters (Hillis, 1987; Mayr and Ashlock, 1991). Morphological

and behavioral characters may often be convergent. For instance, long tails in kangaroo

rats (Dipodomys sp.) and jumping mice (Zapiis sp.) are believed to act as a rudder for

balance. Because the tail has a similar function in both of these mice, this character might

be incorrectly considered homologous. In reality these two taxa are only distantly related.

Because similar molecular characters are unlikely to be convergent, molecular data often

allow one to separate homologous characters from convergent ones by separating

morphologically similar organisms from one another based on genetic information rather

than shared morphological characteristics that may have evolved convergently.

Comparisons of distantly related taxa using morphological characters can be

confounded because of the lack of comparable characters between taxa. Molecular data

allow for the direct comparison of levels of genetic divergence among nearly any group of

organisms. Molecular data can also provide a means for estimating times of divergence

based on a molecular clock that is calibrated using fossil material or biogeographic

hypotheses, thus molecular characters can add an explicit temporal dimension by

Page 27: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

16

calculating the distance between taxa and translating it into a time of divergence between

the taxa (Mayr and Ashlock, 1991; Moritz and Hillis, 1990).

The three models presented above can be related to phylogeographic hypotheses

that have derived from studies of mtDNA gene genealogies (Avise, 1994). Large

phylogenetic gaps between monophyletic groups usually arise from long-term barriers to

dispersal. A late Tertiary geotectonic vicariance would most likely result in a "deep" level

of divergence between northern and southern populations of P. parvus. Reciprocal

monophyly of northern and southern populations would have occured over time through

stochastic lineage sorting. The time of divergence calculated from a molecular clock

could be related to a geotectonic vicariance event such as the uplift of the Blue Mountains.

One would expect shallow levels of genetic divergence if barriers to dispersal had not been

present for long periods of time. Pleistocene glacial-interglacial expansion and contraction

of suitable habitat would result in shallower levels of divergence than would a long-term

isolation event from the late Tertiary. Phylogeographic population structure showing

shallow levels of divergence would be expected in species with life histories conducive to

dispersal or in populations that have few barriers to dispersal. If populations of P. parvus

migrated southward during periods of glacial maxima, low levels of divergence would be

found corresponding to a Pleistocene time of divergence. Reciprocal monophyly from a

Pleistocene divergence may not have occured in such a short time.

Page 28: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Chapter 2

Material and Methods

Specimen Collection

A total of 45 specimens were collected from throughout the range of Perognathus

parvus (Appendix 1). Specimens were caught in Sherman live traps using chicken feed

as bait. Specimens were euthanized using isohalane according to the University of

Nevada, Las Vegas Animal Care and Use protocol. Heart, liver, kidney, and brain tissue

were removed and stored in cryotubes in liquid nitrogen, or they were preserved at

ambient temperature in "Lysis Buffer" (Longmire and Baker, 1994). Tissues are stored

at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas , whereas skins, skeletons and skulls were

prepared as museum specimens and are housed at the Museum of Southwestern Biology,

University of New Mexico.

DNA Extraction

Total genomic DNA was extracted from heart or brain tissue using either of two

DNA isolation procedures. The first DNA isolation protocol, a slightly modified version

of Hillis et al. (1990), involved macerating approximately lOOmg of heart, liver, or brain

tissue and adding 500pl of STE buffer (0.1 M NaCl, 0.05 M Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 0.001 M

EDTA) with 25pl of (10 ug/pl) Proteinase K to a 1.5 ml centrifuge tube. Twenty-five

17

Page 29: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

18

(25)pl of 20% SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) was then added to lyse cell membranes. The

mixture was incubated at 55°C for two hours with occasional mixing. After incubation, an

equal volume of phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (PCI) with a ratio of 25:24:1 was

added. The mixture was incubated at room temperature for 5 minutes with regular mixing

to prevent phases from separating. Tubes were then microcentrifuged for 5 minutes, and

the aqueous layer was removed and saved. This procedure was performed again and

followed by twice washing the removed aqueous layer with an equal volume of

chloroformrisoamyl alcohol (Cl, 24:1), incubating for 5 minutes at room temperature,

microcentrifuging for 3 minutes, and finally removing and saving the aqueous layer. The

extracted genomic DNA was then incubated overnight at -20°C in one ml of cold absolute

ethanol and 1/10 volume of 2M NaCl to precipitate the DNA. The next day the tubes

were centrifuged for five minutes, and the liquid was decanted. The remaining pellet in

the bottom of the tube was washed with 500 p. 1 of 80% ethanol by centrifuging for 5

minutes and decanting the ethanol. Once washed, the DNA pellet was vacuum

centrifuged for 20 minutes. When the pellet had dried, it was resuspended in 150 to

200 p. 1 of IX TE buffer (0.001 M Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 0.0001 M EDTA) and stored at 4°C.

The second DNA isolation protocol of Longmire and Baker (1994) was much

easier to use in the field and was used for specimens captured during July and August of

1994. Approximately 0.4g of tissue (one entire heart or brain)was macerated in a petri

dish and placed in a 15ml polypropylene Coming tube with 5 ml of "Lysis Buffer." The

macerated tissue could then be stored indefinitely out of sunlight at ambient temperature.

Page 30: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

19

"Lysis Buffer" consists of 0.5 M EDTA, 20% SDS, and Tris-HCl. For extraction, 250 |il

of (lOOpg/ml) Proteinase K was added to the tubes and rotated overnight at 37°C. After

overnight rotation, an equal volume of phenol buffered with TE was added and rotated for

another 30 minutes at 37°C. Tubes were then centrifuged at 2000 rpm for five minutes to

separate the phases. The aqueous layer was removed and placed in dialysis tubing.

Samples were dialyzed for 24 to 36 hours against three changes of IX TE buffer (0.001 M

Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 0.0001 M EDTA). The genomic DNA remaining in the dialysis tubing

was placed in 15 ml tubes and stored at 4°C.

Polymerase Chain Reaction

The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was used to amplify target gene regions.

PCR uses oligonucleotide primers to amplify specific sequences of DNA in a cyclic

fashion. Template DNA is placed in a tube containing a 10X solution of reaction buffer

(buffers are different for each type of polymerase), lOmM of each oligonucleotide primer,

8 mM of each of four deoxynucleotides (dNTPs) (dATP, dCTP, dGTP, dTTP), and 4u/pl

of Vent® DNA polymerase (Hillis et al., 1990). Vent® DNA polymerase has a much lower

rate of error in incorporating wrong nucleotides during the primer extension phase of PCR

than Taq DNA polymerase does (Catalog reference). The mixture is then overlaid with

mineral oil to prevent evaporation. Template DNA is denatured at 95°C for one minute in

the first step. In the second step, the oligonucleotide primers anneal to the 5' ends of the

denatured DNA at 50 - 60°C for one minute. In the final step, extension of the primers

occurs by addition of the individual dNTPs to the 3' end of the primer at 72°C for 2

Page 31: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

20

minutes. Each of these steps is repeated for 25 cycles, creating millions of copies of the

original double-stranded target sequence. Repeating this procedure using only one

oligonucleotide primer allows the generation of single-stranded DNA that is suitable for

DNA sequencing.

DNA Sequences

Most of the 784 base pair mt DNA Cytochrome oxidase HI (COIQ) gene was

amplified using PCR. Primers designed by Riddle (unpublished) and identified according

to the 3' base number in the published sequence of Miis (Bibb et al., 1981) are as follows:

L 8618 5' CAT GAT AAC ACA TAA TGA CCC ACC AA -3', H 9323 5'- ACT ACG

TCT ACG AAA TGT CAG TAT CA -3’. A section of this region containing 326 base

pairs was sequenced from three specimens, one from the lower Columbia Plateau and two

from the Great Basin, using the Sanger dideoxy sequencing reaction with Sequenase 2.0

DNA Sequencing kit (Allard et al., 1991; Sanger et al., 1977). Single-stranded DNA is

annealed to one primer (the sequencing primer). This mixture is separated into 4 sub­

samples containing all four deoxynucleotides and a single dideoxynucleotide (ddNTP) that

lack a 3' hydroxyl (3'-OH) group. The DNA strand is made radioactive using 35‘S that has

been added to the ddNTPs. Primer extension is catalyzed by DNA polymerase, and

sequence extension occurs through the attachment of nucleotides to a free 3'-OH.

Wherever a ddNTP has been incorporated further strand extension is halted (Avise, 1994).

The reaction occurs such that DNA fragments of differing lengths are produced. Each of

the four reactions is electrophoresed through a polyacrylimide gel for approximately 5

Page 32: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

21

hours and visualized on an autoradiograph. The DNA sequences obtained from the CO m

gene region were read into the MacVector program version 3.5 (International

Biotechnologies, Inc., New Haven, CT) for alignment and editing.

Transition substitutions in mtDNA accumulate at a stochastically-linear rate of

divergence initially but because of the high rate of substitution, multiple substitutions at a

site eventually produce a high level of phylogenetic noise. Even if transition substitutions

are saturated, transversion parsimony, which uses only transversion substitutions in

analysis, can still be employed because transversions accumulate in a linear fashion long

after the sequences have diverged beyond the saturation of transitions (Brown, 1985).

Riddle (1995) provided evidence that divergence among most geographically and

evolutionary distinct lineages of pocket mice exceeded the point of transition substitution

saturation. Therefore transversion sequence divergence was calculated using the Jukes-

Cantor formula (DNADIST in PHYLEP v.3—Felsenstein, 1993). Phylogenetic trees were

calculated using the branch and bound algorithm in PAUP version 3.0 (Swofford, 1991)

and mixed parsimony analysis, which employs generalized parsimony (transition and

transversion base substitutions weighted equally) for 1st and 2nd codon positions and

transversion parsimony (transition substitutions excluded) for 3rd positions, with 100

bootstrap iterations. Chaetodipiis hispidiis and C. intermedins were used as outgroups.

Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms

Restriction endonucleases cleave DNA at specific sites. The resulting fragment

pattern can then be used to infer restriction sites along the sequence of DNA being

Page 33: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

22

analyzed (Avise, 1994). The fragments are separated by electrophoresis according to

molecular weight- Differences in fragment size may result from base substitutions within

cleavage sites, additions or deletions of DNA, or sequence rearrangements.

The NADH dehydrogenase 2 (ND2) gene region and a portion of the Cytochrome

oxidase I (COI) gene region containing 2150 base pairs was amplified using PCR with

primers designed by Dr. J. C. Patton (Riddle et al., 1993). Primer sequences are: L3880,

5'-TAA GCT ATC GGG CCC ATA CC-3'; and H6033, 5'-ACT TCA GGG TGC CCA

AAG AAT CA-3'. Ten microliters of the amplified product were subjected to restriction

endonuclease digestion according to manufacturer's protocols using the following 13

restriction enzymes: Bsp 12861. BslNI, BstUI, Haell. HaelU, H indi, HindlH. Hinfl,

Mbol. MspI, Rsal. Taql. and Xbal. Digested samples were electrophoresed through a

1.5% agarose gel for approximately 3 hours. Banding patterns were then visualized after

staining the gel with ethidium bromide and placing it on an ultra-violet transilluminator.

Polaroid photographs were taken of each gel.

After scoring fragments according to distance travelled on the gel, restriction sites

were inferred under assumptions of single-site substitution patterns (Dowling et al., 1990).

Data were analyzed using RESTSITE (Miller, 1991) and REAP (McElroy et al., 1991).

Distance matrices were calculated in RESTSITE using the Jukes-Cantor formula, and

were used to generate UPGMA dendrograms. Distance matrices plus standard errors of

distances were calculated using the DSE program in REAP. DSE estimates genetic

distance values using equations set out by Nei and Tajima (1981). Standard .errors are

computed according to Nei and Tajima (1983).

Page 34: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

23

Haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity and divergence were calculated in the

DA program of REAP. Haplotype diversity within populations (h) was calculated using

equation 7 of Nei and Tajima (1981):

h = n(l - Sxj2) / (n - 1),

where x; is the population frequency of the ith haplotype and n is the number of individuals

sampled. In this case X; is the frequency of haplotype (i) occurring in the ND2/COI region

of the mitochondrial genome. Standard error of haplotype diversity (VS11/2) was calculated

using equation 8.12 of Nei (1987):

VSI(h )= (2 / ( 2n - 1)) { 2 (2n - 2) [E X;3 - ( E x 3 )2] + 2 x 3 - ( 2 Xj2 )2},

where again n is the number of individuals sampled, and X; is the frequency of haplotype (i)

occurring in the ND2/COI region of the mitochondrial gene region. Estimated nucleotide

diversity within populations (n) was calculated using equation 10.19 of Nei (1987)

which corrects for small sample sizes:

n = ( n x / n x - 1 ) SgXiXjdg,

where nx is the number of sequences sampled, dy estimates the number of nucleotide

Page 35: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

24

substitutions per restriction site between the ith and the jth haplotypes, and x{ and Xj are

the sample frequencies of the ith and jth haplotypes for the population being analyzed.

Nucleotide diversity among populations is calculated using Nei's equation:

^ x y = 2 , ^ y j d ^ ,

where d̂ - estimates the nucleotide substitutions between the ith haplotype from population

X and the jth haplotype from population Y. Nucleotide divergence between populations

(dA) is calculated using Nei's equation 10.21:

= X̂Y ' ( + dY ) / 2.

Geographic heterogeneity in haplotype distributions among populations was

estimated using the Monte program of REAP. This program uses a Monte Carlo

simulation to analyze the extent of geographic heterogeneity among populations (Roff and

Bentzen, 1989). The program generates, through a large number of randomizations of the

data set, the distribution of x2 expected if the null hypothesis of homogeneity were true for

the particular data set being studied. Because the frequency of some haplotypes is so low

that the expected distribution generated by this statistic may not conform to that of y2. the

Monte Carlo statistic is designated as X2. The probability, P, of obtaining a value of X2

equal to or larger than that obtain from the actual observations is given by the equation:

Page 36: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

25

P = n / N,

where n is the number of randomizations that generate the large value of X2, and N is the

number of randomized sets. The standard error of P is:

s.e. = [P (1 - P ) / N]1/2.

Page 37: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Chapter 3

Results

Sequence Results

Analysis of sequence divergence in the C01H gene indicated that there are at least

two divergent mtDNA lineages within P. parvus. Average transversion sequence

divergence between specimens from Crook County, Oregon (Columbia Plateau) and two

specimens from the Great Basin (Cassia County, Idaho and Nye County, Nevada) was

estimated to be 7.3%. A summary of base substitutions among these three specimens is

given in Table 2.

Figure 3 depicts a phylogeny that was estimated using data from both the COm

gene and the mtDNA cyt b gene (Riddle, 1995). Bootstrap support for the P. parvus

node is 84% versus 54% (Figure 4) when exemplars from this data set included only

sequence from the COIII gene. Although the P. parvus clade from the smaller data set

had lower bootstrap support, P. parvus from the Columbia Plateau did not tend to cluster

with any other clade at a similar frequency as it did with the P. parvus clade. Bootstrap

support for Columbia Plateau P. parvus clustering with the P. apache clade or the P.

longimembris clade was 5% and 25%, respectively. A genetic distance matrix for these

sequences is shown in Table 3. Note that distances between Columbia Plateau and Great

26

Page 38: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

27

Table 2. Pairwise comparison of nucleotide base substitutions from 326 base pairs of the mtDNA C O m gene obtained from 3 specimens of Perognathus parvus. Collection localities, Las Vegas Tissue (LVT) numbers and numbers under which sequences were published in GenBank are indicated. Substitutions are recorded as number of transitions/transversions per codon position.

Codon position

Locality LVT GenBank 1st 2nd 3rd

OR: Crook Co./ID: Cassia Co.

1921/794 U2 1624 4/1 3/1 37/20

OR: Crook Co./NV: Nye Co.

1921/1806 U2 1622 5/1 3/0 36/21

ED: Cassia Co./NV: Nye Co.

794/1806 U2 1621 1/0 0/0 0/2

Page 39: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

28

CO COCO

COCO

CO CO CO

COCO

to00

C\C\

COC\C\ C\

a

evol

utio

n by

Ridd

le (1

995)

. Re

prod

uced

wi

th pe

rmis

sion

.

Page 40: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

29

CO

CO

-c

§ CQ >> • 2?0 aUh §

Page 41: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 3.

Tran

sver

sion

dista

nce

matr

ix

of 32

6 ba

se

pairs

of

the

COIII

ge

ne

from

sequ

ence

s of

seve

ral

pock

et m

ouse

sp

ecie

s, ca

lcul

ated

us

ing

Juke

s-C

anto

r fo

rmul

a in

the

DN

AD

IST

algor

ithm

of

PHY

LIP.

Th

ese

spec

imen

s we

re

used

to

cons

truct

a ph

ylog

eny

incl

udin

g sp

ecim

ens

of Pe

rogn

athu

s pa

rvus

fro

m the

G

reat

Bas

in and

the

so

uthern

Co

lum

bia

Plat

eau.

G

RB

=Gre

at B

asin

, C

LP=C

olum

bia

Plat

eau,

HIS

P=H

ISPI

DU

S, A

PA=A

PAC

HE,

FA

SC=F

ASC

IATU

S, F

LAV

=FL

AV

US,

FLV

S=FL

AV

ESC

EN

S,

LON

G=L

ON

GIM

EMB

RIS

, PA

RV

1=PA

RV

US_

GR

B1,

PA

RV

2=PA

RV

US_

GR

B2,

PA

RV3=

PA

RV

US_

CLP

.

30

PARV

3

0.14

18

PARV

2

0.07

12

0.15

06

>06<

OOr***oo

i—tr-*o

t-Hinr-H

Hi o o o

O2OO n

O nOT“HCOC OO nO

vooi—H oCOy—4o o o o

FLVS

0.12

96

0.10

68

0.09

50

0.10

73

0.13

83

><frj

oCNr“-t

COV OC Oo

rtV Or-H i—H

CSooOO niny—4r—H

inV O

o o o O o o

FASC

oV OTft-H

lOO n

O

oocsN*1—4r--csCO

OCScsr—1r-t-Ho

N"r-»CNo O o o o o o

APA cn

o nmo

V Oc-*-CSO NcsCNO

inr—<

CNoor—(CNr-o\o

ooooO nO

V O 00 CO 1—<o O o o o o O o

-IISP

. voCOoCOxfr—'4

O nCNwoT—<r*Hr-(Ni—i

O NT—<COr”HV OoV O*—H

3mr*HCOV Omt—H

csxf1— I i—“4o o o o o o o o o

Spec

imen

HIS

PID

US

APA

CH

E

FASC

IATU

S1

FLA

VU

S

FLA

VES

CEN

S

LO

NG

IMEM

BR

IS1

PAR

VU

S_G

RB

1

PAR

VU

S_G

RB

2

PAR

VU

S_C

LP

INT

ERM

ED

IUS

Page 42: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

31

Basin P. parvus (x = 7.3) is clearly less than average distances between either Columbia

Plateau or Great Basin P. parvus and the Flavus group and Longimembris group (x =

11.4, 10.3) or Fasciatus group (x = 10.6) representatives.

RFLP Results

Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) analysis revealed eighteen

mtDNA haplotypes (7 from the Columbia Plateau and 11 from the Great Basin/Colorado

Plateau). The COIII sequence divergence among samples of P. parvus support a high

level of divergence between Columbia Plateau and Great Basin/Colorado Plateau

haplotypes (Table 2). Restriction site analysis methods employed in the study were unable

to discern specific site gains and losses between haplotypes from the Columbia Plateau

relative to haplotypes from the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau because double enzyme

digestions were not performed on restriction fragments. Additionally, sites that could be

scored as shared between regions could not be assumed to be uniquely derived due to high

probabilities of multiple losses and gains. Therefore, the Columbia Plateau and Great

Basin haplotypes were analyzed as separate restriction-site data sets (Tables 4 and 5).

Distribution of mtDNA RFLP haplotypes is shown in Figure 5.

A UPGMA dendrogram of haplotypes from the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau,

based on the genetic distance matrix in Table 6, is shown in Figure 6. The most common

haplotype found among Great Basin/Colorado Plateau samples was number 1 (Figure 5);

this haplotype was found in 15 specimens from five localities in central to southern

Oregon and from one specimen located in north-central Nevada (55% of the total).

Page 43: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 4.

Com

posit

e ha

plot

ypes

of

spec

imen

s fro

m the

G

reat

Bas

in/C

olor

ado

Plate

au

used

in

restr

ictio

n sit

e an

alys

is.

Enzy

me

clas

s (E

nz.c

l), e

nzym

e, a

nd

Las

Vega

s Ti

ssue

(L

VT)

are

indi

cate

d.

Com

posit

e ha

plot

ype

(CO

MP)

num

bers

are

id

entif

ied

in the

las

t co

lum

n.32

COMP

t“ 4 cs cn St NO NO <o WO r - H 1— 4 1— 4 N O r~ OO

n© < < < < < < < < <C < < < < <

TT3

c PQ < < < < < < < < < < < <

Tf PQ po pq pq < < < < PQ PQ PQ PQ PQ PQ

Tf pq < < < < < < < PQ PQ PQ PQ PQ PQ

Tf < < < < < < < < < < < < < <

1 < U h < < < < < PQ PQ PQ < Q O

n©a

< < < < < < < < < < < < < <

5.33

i< < < < < < < < < < < < < <

Tf»— ( t— 1

< < < pq < < < < < < < < < <

5.33

l< < < PQ < < < < < < < < < <

>-4

< < < < < < < < < < < < < <

4.67

>— <

1< < < < PQ PQ PQ PQ < < < < < <

5.33

> -4

OO< sT—^ < < < < < ■ < < < < < < < < <

. s iC

f c d

H

>mO N

r ~ -

u ooC Or —4

N Oo0 0

C ~ -oO Oi— i

C OT—H

o o

• N ft— 4C Or-H

> o1—HC Oi—H

N O

O OT— t

C OcsO N 1“ •

w ocsO N1— 4

r -csO N 1— <

O N C S O N 1— t

1— 4mO ni— 4

csC OO NT-H

Page 44: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 4

Con

tinue

d.

Com

posit

e ha

plot

ypes

of

spec

imen

s fro

m the

G

reat

Bas

in/C

olor

ado

Plate

au

used

in

restr

ictio

n sit

e an

alys

is.

Enzy

me

class

(E

nz.c

l), e

nzym

e, a

nd

Las

Veg

as T

issue

(L

VT)

are

in

dica

ted.

Co

mpo

site

hapl

otyp

e (C

OM

P) n

umbe

rs

are

iden

tifie

d in

the

las

t co

lum

n.33

COMP

OO VO On »—H

v©X

hal

< < < < < < < < < < < < <

T f < < < < < < < < < < < < <

T f

Rsa

l

pq m f f l m CQ pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

T f pq < pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

T f < < < < < < < < < < < < <

T f

Hin

fl

u < < PQ pq pq W pq pq pq pq pq pq

VD

Hin

din

< < < < < < < < < < < < <

5.33

i< < < < < < < < < < < < <

T f

Hae

in < < < < < < < < < < < < <

5.33

1< < < < < < < < < < < < <

T f

1< < < < < < < < < < < < <

4.67 Z < < < < < < < < < < < < <

5.33

Bsp

l286

I

< < < < < < < < < < < < <

CW L

VT

1933

1934

1935

1937

1938

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945

'19

46

Page 45: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 4

Con

tinue

d.

Com

posit

e ha

plot

ypes

of

spec

imen

s fro

m the

G

reat

Bas

in/C

olor

ado

Plate

au

used

in

restr

ictio

n sit

e an

alys

is.

Enzy

me

class

(E

nz.c

l), e

nzym

e, a

nd

Las

Veg

as T

issue

(L

VT)

are

in

dica

ted.

Co

mpo

site

hapl

otyp

e (C

OM

P)

num

bers

are

iden

tifie

d in

the

las

t co

lum

n.34

| CO

MP

T— •

VO < < < < < <

T f

3< < < < < <

T f

clm m m m m m

T T m « m m m <

T f < < < < < <

T f

1m m m

no1

< < < < < <

5.33

Hi

nc

II

< < < < < <

rr a < < < < < <

5.33

1< < < < < <

T f | < < < < < <

l >V D

T f

z1

< < < < < <

5.33

t—<SOO Of S < < < < < <

Enz

.cl

H

>r -T fO Nr-H

o oT fOn

onT fO NT— (

T—ii nO s1- H

c smOn

t -> nO N

Page 46: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 5.

Com

posit

e ha

plot

ypes

of

spec

imen

s fro

m the

Co

lum

bia

Plate

au

used

in

restr

ictio

n site

an

alys

is.

Enzy

me

class

(E

nz.c

l),

enzy

me,

and

La

s V

egas

Tiss

ue

(LVT

) are

in

dica

ted.

Co

mpo

site

hapl

otyp

e (C

OM

P) n

umbe

rs

are

iden

tifie

d in

the

last

colu

mn.

.35

COM

P

CSr-H

COr-H

T fr~A

wor-H

wot—H

csr-H

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z Z o z z z P a Pa z z o o o

T f z Z z z z z z Z z z z z z

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cl, CL, o o o Oh z Z P i pi a a a

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1919

1920

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1950

1953

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1958

Page 47: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

36

ca

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Page 48: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 6.

Matr

ix

of ge

netic

di

stanc

es

and

stand

ard

erro

rs

(Nei

and

Tajim

a, 1

981)

from

so

uthe

rn

popu

latio

ns

of P.

par

vus.

Gen

etic

di

stan

ces

amon

g ele

ven

com

posit

e mt

DNA

hapl

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es

are

show

n be

low

the

maj

or d

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nal,

and

stand

ard

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rs are

sh

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ajor

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37

O n O O V O C S r - c - in C O r -

O O T"H T“ H o T f cs CS m 0 0 cs1—1 o t“H T“H t- H t- H r - H t- H t - H o r H

r H p p o o O o o O o O

o o o o O o o o o o

O n O n T t cs T f r - in m CSO O V O Tt O O cs cs m m oo O T—H T—H t- H r - H t- H t- H t- H T—HO p o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o

r- oo t- H Tf CO in oo C O O n

cs r- CO r-- V N oo in t- H m T ft- h o o o o T“H t- H t- H Owr o o p o r H

. o p O O O

o o o o o o o o o O

r- m O n C O O C O wo 0 0 C O C O

cs T f C O cs V O oo in O N in inT -H t—h T—H t- H t- H o T -H o t- H t- H

o o p o o p o o O O

o o O o o o o o o o

Q \ O n cs T f r- C O C O cs csOO r- V O T f oo cs in in o oO t—H t - H y—f t- H r - H r - H t- H r H T“ H

o O o o o o o o o oo o o o o o C D o o o

C T \ 0 0 r- V O cs cs O N O N cs o )

o o t- H t—H o T f o T f T f o oV/“ i o r — 4 t- H t- H t- H t- H O o t- H T—H

p o O o o o o o o p

o o o o o o o o C D o

c n O n V O o O n oo V O O n oV O C O C S t- H o O T f T f O oi 4 r - H r -H t- H cs C O cs t- H C O cs

m ) p O O o o o o O o oo O O o o o o o o o

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C S o C O T f O n O n T f T f

t—H t- H t- H cs t- H cs t—H O C S T—HX T o o o p o p o O p o

o o o o o o o O o o

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t J* t- H o in in r - T—H O r - mt- H cs cs T—H cs cs t- H cs ■ i

no o o o p o o O o p

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t o in C O O n O n o T f T f o O n

T—H 1—H t—H t- H O cs t- H O cs Or s

p o o O O p o O o O

o o o o O o C D o o O

C O O n O n O n t- H t - H C S cs t- H T—H

in t- H O n m m in o o m ini—H cs t- H cs o o T“H T—H o o

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Page 49: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

38

Figu

re

6. UP

GMA

dend

rogr

am

of G

reat

Bas

in/C

olor

ado

Plate

au

mtDN

A ha

plot

ypes

ge

nera

ted

from

gene

tic

dist

ani

matr

ix

calc

ulat

ed

usin

g eq

uatio

ns

of Ne

i (1

987)

in

REST

SITE

(M

iller

, 19

91).

Page 50: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Haplotype number 10 was the next most closely related to haplotype 1 and was found

together with haplotype 1 in southeastern Oregon. Haplotype 7 clustered with haplotypes

1 and 10 but was found in a population that was located approximately 120 miles from the

nearest haplotype 1. Haplotype 7 was found in conjunction with one other haplotype,

number 8,with which it did not cluster and to which it was not found to be most closely

related. Haplotypes 6 and 9, from east-central and northeastern Nevada, respectively,

clustered together with approximately 0.25% sequence divergence between them.

Haplotypes 2 and 11 also clustered with 6 and 9 and were from the Nevada Test Site and

central Nevada, respectively; haplotype 8, from the same locadon as haplotype 7,

clustered outside this group. The most divergent haplotype was number 5. This was

found in specimens collected from south-central Utah on the Colorado Plateau. It was

found to be approximately 2.6% divergent from the nearest haplotypes, numbers 3 and 4,

which were both found on the Nevada Test Site.

Eight composite haplotypes were found from six localities from the Columbia

Plateau specimens. The UPGMA dendrogram (Figure 7), constructed from the distance

matrix in Table 7, showed a distinct demarcation between specimens collected in Oregon

and those collected in Washington. Haplotype 18, which clustered with 16, was found in

eastern Oregon. Both of the localities from which these specimens were collected were

along the southernmost border of the Columbia Plateau. This cluster of haplotypes was

found to be approximately 8.1% divergent from other haplotypes on the Columbia

Plateau. The five haplotypes found in Washington all clustered relatively closely with one

another. Haplotypes 12 and 13 were both from the same locality, and they clustered most

Page 51: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

40

CMT —oo

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Page 52: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Tabl

e 7.

Matr

ix

of ge

netic

di

stanc

es a

nd

stand

ard

erro

rs

(Nei

and

Tajim

a, 1

981)

fro

m no

rther

n po

pula

tions

of

P. p

arvu

s. G

enet

ic

dist

ance

s am

ong

seve

n co

mpo

site

mtDN

A ha

plot

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are

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below

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m

ajor

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l, and

sta

ndar

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gona

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41

18

0.0

26

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77

0.0

25

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31

Tf* m c s 0 0 c-~ r -O r o OS •'tj- o o i n

t" CN cn i—t r-H o oT—4 O o o o o o

o o o o o o

o r - CO o s i nr—< r*H o CO

v o cn cn CN CN VO i n^4 o o O o o p

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r r l-H o OO CN oo o p o p r—Ho o o O O o

CN o s r-- o i no VO VO VO o ocn r—-< CN T—< OO CO oo O o o O 1—<o o o o o o

VO VO i n o o CN i nCO o o VO r - o

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Page 53: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

42

closely with haplotypes 14 and 15 which were also from the same locality, which was

located approximately 60 miles from where 12 and 13 were found. Haplotype 17

clustered outside this group and was found to be about 2.3% divergent from it.

A total of six composite populations were compiled for use in a Monte Carlo

simulation; three populations within the Columbia Plateau and three populations within the

Great Basin/Colorado Plateau. Composite populations and distribution of haplotypes are

as shown in Figure 8. Columbia Plateau and Great Basin/Colorado Plateau populations

were analyzed separately, and then the composite populations in each region were

combined and analyzed as two populations. X 2 values were calculated from the original

data matrices and then compared to the X2 calculated after repeated random sampling of

the data matrix. Haplotype diversity (h) and nucleotide diversity in the Columbia Plateau

were much higher than in the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau (Table 8). Monte Carlo

simulation results demonstrated significant geographic heterogeneity in both regions

(Table 9).

Page 54: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

43

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& * Sr u^ <o.2 J=

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Page 55: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Table 8 . Haplotype and nucleotide diversity values among composite mtDNA haplotypes in the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau and on the Columbia Plateau calculated in the DA program of REAP using equations from Nei (1987) and Nei and Tajima (1983).

G eographic location Haplotype Diversity (h)

Nucleotide diversity (7t)

G reat Basin/Colorado Plateau

0.3797 ± 0.08289 0.005087 ± 0.0000112

Colum bia Plateau 0.7556 ± 0.00605 0.02743 ± 0.0002384

Page 56: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

45

Table 9. Monte Carlo simulation X2 values and P-values among composite mtDNA haplotypes from the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau and the Columbia Plateau and between the Great Basin/Colorado Plateau and Columbia Plateau. X2 values were calculated in the Monte program of REAP using the equations of Roff and Bentzen (1989).

M onte C arlo sim ulation X2 values P-values

Among Great Basin/Colorado Plateau populations

66.00 0.0001

Among Columbia Plateau populations

22.75 0.003

Between Great Basin/Colorado Plateau and Columbia Plateau populations

46.00 0.0001

Page 57: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Chapter 4

Discussion

Biogeographic hypotheses based upon Pleistocene glacial and interglacial cycles

have been used to explain distributions of rodents in western North America (Schmidley et

a l , 1994;) as well as diversity patterns of flora (Spaulding, 1990; Thompson, 1990).

Analyses reveal that there is considerable variation both within and among populations of

Perognathus parvus from the Columbia Plateau and the Great Basin. Prior studies hinted

at the variation between populations from the Columbia Plateau versus the Great Basin

(Williams, 1978), but none exhibited this amount or pattern of variation. Variation within

P. parvus occurs in a well-defined hierarchy. Riddle (1995) demonstrated hierarchical

structuring among other species of Perognathus, Chaetodipus, and Onychomys. DNA

sequence divergence levels between Columbia Plateau and Great Basin/Colorado Plateau

haplotypes are veiy high, while genetic distance values from RFLP analyses show much

smaller levels of divergence among haplotypes within either region. Additional

phylogeographic structure may be present among northern and southern Columbia Plateau

populations.

Molecular clocks based on generation time, body size and metabolic rate allowed

for the calibration of a time of divergence between populations of P. parvus (Li et al.,

46

Page 58: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

47

Martin and Palumbi, 1993). The Mus - Rattus split about 10 mya provides a standard

against which rates of divergence can be calibrated in rodents of similar body size (Jaeger

et al., 1986). Riddle (1995) estimated a transversion substitution rate of about 1% per

million years in the COIU gene of Mus and Rattus. The transversion sequence divergence

of about 7.2% between northern and southern haplotypes of P. parvus therefore suggests

a late Miocene time of divergence. The demarcation between Columbia Plateau and

Great Basin populations of P. parvus occurs in central Oregon at the Blue Mountains.

The estimated time of divergence of approximately 7.2 million years ago roughly

corresponds to the uplift of the Blue Mountains. The high level of bootstrap support for

the P. parvus clade in Riddle (1995) supports the monophyletic nature of the P. parvus

clade, and the level of transversion sequence divergence between Columbia Plateau and

Great Basin sequences supports the hypothesis that P. parvus is actually made up of at

least two distinct lineages. Genetic distances between Columbia Plateau and Great Basin

sequences are greater than the distances between P. apache and P.fasciatus (5.9%), P.

flavus and P.flavescens (4.9%), and between P. apache and P . flavescens (2.3%), which

are all considered to be separate species (Nickle, 1994). This level of DNA sequence

divergence is exceptionally high for an intraspecies comparison and indicates that what has

traditionally been known as one species may actually represent two distinct lineages that

diverged from one another following a large-scale vicariance event, thus warranting

unique specific status for each. Further support for recognizing two distinct species

comes from the high degree of karyotypic divergence that Williams (1978) found between

northern and southern populations of P. parvus (Table 1).

Page 59: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

48

The deep level of sequence divergence between the Columbia Plateau and Great

Basin populations of P. parvus and the estimated time of divergence at approximately 7.2

ma provide evidence for support of the hypothesis of a late Tertiary geotectonic vicariance

event The time of the Blue Mountains orogeny (late Miocene) roughly corresponds to

the time of isolation between Columbia Plateau and Great Basin populations of P. parvus.

Late Pleistocene vicariance as the result of habitat expansion and contraction would be

reflected in lower levels of sequence divergence between northern and southern

populations, as would Pleistocene dispersal due to climatic changes during glacial maxima.

Therefore, Pleistocene vicariance and dispersal hypotheses can be rejected in favor of a

late Tertiary vicariance explanation for the distribution of northern and southern mtDNA

haplotypes.

Nucleotide diversity among haplotypes from the Columbia Plateau is an order of

magnitude higher than diversity found among the Great Basin haplotypes. Genetic

distance values among haplotypes on the Columbia Plateau are also significantly higher

than in the Great Basin. The high levels of diversity and divergence on the Columbia

Plateau are largely attributed to comparisons among Washington and Oregon haplotypes.

Haplotypes 16 and 18 from Oregon are more closely related to each other than they are to

haplotypes from Washington; they also exhibit the largest amount of genetic divergence

from the other haplotypes on the Columbia Plateau. Haplotypes 12 and 15 from one

location are separated from haplotypes 13, 14, and 17, as well as another 12 and 15 by the

Columbia River. Gene flow probably occurred between these populations before the

Columbia River formed a possible barrier to dispersal. If the Columbia River does form a

Page 60: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

49

barrier, it has not existed long enough to cause large amounts of divergence to occur

between populations in Washington. Additional data are required to assess geographic

distribution of haplotypes 16 and 18, which are most divergent from other Columbia

Plateau haplotypes. Although sequences from Washington haplotypes would allow for

estimation of a more detailed phylogeny of the P. parvus clade, RFLP data indicate that

additional phylogeographic structure is included in P. parvus.

Fossil pollen records from the Columbia Plateau indicate that xeric shrub-steppe

habitat did not exist in that area as a dominant component until about 14 to 12 ma

(Leopold and Denton, 1987). Prior to this time the area contained mesic deciduous forest

vegetation. The change from a mesic to xeric vegetation is believed to be due to the high

level of active volcanism occurring during this time period. Volcanic activity can cause

what appears to be climatic change, causing a moist habitat type to shift into a xeric one

(Cross and Taggart, 1982). Although xeric grassland and shrub-steppe habitat was not

the dominant vegetation type in the area, it was present at lower elevations. Uplift of the

Cascades during the mid Miocene created a rain shadow that decreased the amount of

precipitation east of the mountain range and facilitated the expansion of xeric habitat

(Leopold and Denton, 1987). P. parvus on the Columbia Plateau during the Miocene may

have expanded it's range with the expansion of xeric shrub-steppe vegetation and decline

of woodland habitat An hypothetical scenario that would explain the amount of diversity

in the Columbia Plateau would be that an ancestral Perognathus parvus was present on

the Columbia Plateau during middle Miocene. Beginning in the Miocene, the Columbia

Plateau was dominated by mesic woodland with patches of drier shrub-steppe type habitat

Page 61: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

50

at lower elevations (Leopold and Denton, 1987). Advancement of woodland habitat

would have forced widespread P. parvus populations into increasingly smaller patches of

suitable habitat. Diversity that remained in those populations was a remnant of the earlier,

more widespread populations.

Another possible scenario to explain the amount of diversity on the Columbia

Plateau is that there was considerable basaltic volcanism occurring in the area during the

Miocene. Vertical tectonic rotation associated with volcanism caused a sharp folding

pattern to the basaltic plains (Swanson et al., 1989). This folding could have caused

isolation of populations and subsequent genetic differentiation from one another.

Readvancement of shrub-steppe habitat approximately 3 mya (Leopold and Denton, 1987)

would have allowed populations to expand, and genetic diversity within and among

populations would be left over from a time when populations were isolated from one

another and evolving separately. Pleistocene climatic reconstructions show evidence for

severe decreased winter temperatures on the Columbia Plateau. P. parvus most likely

persisted on the Columbia Plateau during the height of Pleistocene glaciation instead of

shifting its range southward off of the Columbia Plateau due to the fact that P. parvus is

able to hibernate, slowing its metabolic rate so that it can withstand periods of unsuitable

weather (French, 1993).

The amount of divergence occurring among haplotypes in the Great

Basin/Colorado Plateau is on average much lower than that on the Columbia Plateau.

This suggests that long-term effective population sizes of P. parvus on the Columbia

Plateau have been higher than in the Great Basin. The low levels of divergence among

Page 62: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

51

Great Basin/Colorado Plateau haplotypes, and the wide distribution of haplotype 1

indicate few barriers to dispersal and gene flow in the northern part of the Great Basin, or

may indicate recent expansion of the range of P. parvus into the northern Great Basin

from southern refugia. Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles and expansion and

contraction of areas of suitable habitat in the Great Basin may be responsible for the

genetic divergence found among haplotypes from the Great Basin. During the Wisconsin

glaciation, shrub-steppe plant communities existed in the intermontane basins of the Great

Basin (Thompson and Mead, 1982). The distribution of this habitat may have provided

corridors for dispersal of organisms inhabiting i t Subsequent climatic warming forced

shrub-steppe communities upslope to mid elevations where they now exist. Populations of

P. parvus, which had a once more continuous distribution in the intermontane basins,

became isolated from one another when suitable habitat became fragmented.

The correspondence of geological, fossil, and molecular data appears to be

chronological, with the oldest basalt and fossils, and the greatest amount of genetic

diversity occurring in the north on the Columbia Plateau. As one moves southward into

the Great Basin, the relative age of basalt is younger, fossil records appear later, and the

genetic diversity among haplotypes is lower.

There are other taxa that exhibit similar distribution patterns to P. parvus.

Spermophilus beldingi is distributed throughout the Great Basin much like Perognathus

parvus, while S. columbianus is distributed on the Columbia Plateau north of the Blue

Mountains (Hall, 1981). This is very similar to northern and southern populations of P.

parvus. The Blue Mountains orogeny likely had extreme influence on the distributions of

Page 63: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

52

animal and plant taxa and the genetic variation present in those taxa that underwent a

vicariance event of such magnitude. There is evidence for the presence of sciurid rodents

in North America subsequent to the Barstovian NALMA (mid Miocene) (Savage and

Russell, 1983). If they were present on the Columbia Plateau as well as in the Great

Basin, populations would have been subjected to the same vicariance events as P. parvus.

I propose the hypothesis that S. beldingi and S. columbianus, and possibly other species

of small rodents exhibit a pattern of genetic variation very similar to that between northern

and southern populations of P. parvus.

On another temporal scale, there are rather high levels of haplotype diversity in

both northern and southern populations of P. parvus. Pleistocene glacial perturbations

probably contributed to geographic variation among populations of P. parvus. Fossil

pollen records show that the overall composition of vegetation in the Great Basin has

changed very little since the Pleistocene, but there have been shifts in the distribution of

the vegetation since the latest glacial episode (Thompson, 1990). Glacial-interglacial

cycles are known to have caused expansion and contraction of biotic environments that in

turn may be related to maintenance of haplotype diversity among populations of P.

parvus.

Future Research

There are some concerns about interpreting molecular variation that comes from

only one source (i.e. a single gene region or genome). It would be prudent to use nuclear

DNA to test conclusions in this study. Assuming that the northern and southern

Page 64: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

53

populations have been separated for a long period of time, differences should also

accumulate in the nuclear genome (Avise et al., 1987). Use of allozymes, sequencing of

nuclear DNA, DNA-DNA hybridization, microsatellites, and microcomplement fixation

techniques would provide independent data sets.

The area of overlap between northern and southern populations of P. parvus in

central Oregon contains populations that have both northern and southern haplotypes

present. Because this study involved only the use of mtDNA, which is maternally

inherited, it is impossible to assess whether or not hybridization may be occurring between

northern and southern populations or if this area merely represents a zone of overlap in the

distributions of the two reproductively-isolated populations of P. parvus. In order to test

the hypothesis of hybridization, it would be necessary to use analyses of nuclear DNA (i.e.

allozymes, micro satellite DNA) to determine if there had been any gene flow between

populations. Analyses of nuclear DNA would allow for the determination of

heterozygosity in individuals as well as identification of origin of parental genotypes

present in offspring.

Conclusions

The results of this study have clearly shown that although Perognathus parvus is

monophyletic, it consists of at least two distinct lineages: one on the Columbia Plateau,

north of the Blue Mountains, one in the Great Basin, south of the Blue Mountains, and

possibly another in central Oregon along the southern edge of the Columbia Plateau.

Divergence values between the Columbia Plateau and Great Basin lineages suggest that

Page 65: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

northern and southern populations were isolated from one another during the mid to late

Miocene corresponding to the uplift of the Blue Mountains in northern Oregon.

Haplotype diversity on the Columbia Plateau is higher than in the Great Basin and

suggests that effective population size has remained much higher over time.

Page 66: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

Chapter 5

Perognathus alticola and P. xanthonotus

Perognathus alticola and P. xanthonotus were originally hypothesized to be

members of the Perognathus parvus Species Group (Osgood, 1900). Williams' (1978)

study of karyotypes supported this hypothesis. Sulentich (1983) reviewed the systematics

of the Perognathus parvus Species Group in southern California and based on biochemical

data, he determined that P. xanthonotus was a subspecies of P. parvus and that P. alticola

alticola and P. alticola inexpectatus should be separated at the specific level. Williams

(1993) then accepted Sulentich's proposal that P. xanthonotus is a subspecies of P.

parvus, but he did not accept the separation of P. alticola subspecies, thus disagreeing

with his own karyotype data showing that both P. alticola and P. xanthonotus had

identical karyotypes to P. parvus from the Great Basin (Table 10).

The status of these two other members of the Perognathus parvus Species Group

has not been satisfactorily resolved. These two species reside in the northern Mojave

Desert of southern California in isolated areas of habitat characterized by Joshua trees

(Yucca brevicauda), sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), juniper (Juniperus sp.) and pinyon pine

(Pinus sp) (Figure 9). Woodrat middens in the Mojave Desert suggest a cooler

temperature regime for the area as evidenced by shadscale-juniper association during the

55

l

Page 67: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

56

Table 10. Karyotype characteristics of species included in the Perognathus parvus species group showing similarity between P. p. olivaceous and P. alticola, and similarity between . p. clarus and P. xanthonotus. 2N=diploid number, FN=fundamental number,BA=biarmed chromosome, A=uniarmed chromosome, ST=subtelocentric, SM=submetacentric, A=acrocentric. Data are from Williams (1978).

Autosomal pairs

SPECIES m EN BA A X X

Perognathus parvus olivaceous 54 74 11 15 ST A

Perognathus parvus clarus 54 76 12 14 ST A

Perognathus alticola 54 74 11 15 ST A

Perognathus xanthonotus 54 76 12 14 ST A

Page 68: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

57

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Page 69: Systematics and biogeography of the Great Basin pocket

58

middle Wisconsin. Extirpation of shadscale around 19,000 ybp was followed by the

immigration of pinyon pine and shrubs (Spaulding, 1990), and desertscrub became the

dominant vegetation type during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. These areas are

likely to be post-Pleistocene refugia, and P. xanthonotus and P. alticola may represent

isolated populations of previously more southern distribution of P. parvus. These areas

also support other taxa that may be Pleistocene relicts (Riddle, pers. comm.). Based on

the distribution, historical ecological evidence and Williams' (1978) karyotype data, I

propose the hypothesis that both P. alticola inexpectatus and P. xanthonotus are

subspecies of P. parvus. P. alticola alticola may truly represent a unique taxon based on

its distribution in relation to the other two species and the possibility that the Sierra

Nevada acts as a barrier to dispersal. P. alticola inexpectatus and P. xanthonotus reside

on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, while P. alticola alticola resides on the western

side. Uplift of the Sierra Nevada during the early Miocene would have separated these

populations long ago if they were present at that time.

It is not known whether or not P. alticola or P. xanthonotus are extant. Neither

have been caught in several years (not for lack of effort), and P. alticola is a protected

species in California. For this reason it will be difficult to test the hypotheses presented

above using whole specimens. Recent techniques in isolating and analyzing DNA from

museum skins and bones of extinct species have opened new areas of research (Higuchi et

al., 1984, 1987; Hoss and Paabo, 1993; Paabo, 1985; Paabo, 1989; Paabo et al., 1989).

Isolation of DNA from museum specimens of P. alticola and P. xanthonotus, and use of

primers designed for amplification of small diagnostic sequences of DNA would allow one

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59

to compare sequences of these two species with those of P. parviis and determine levels of

divergence among them. Taxonomic status of P. alticola and P. xanthonotus could then

be assessed and biogeographic hypotheses evaluated.

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APPENDIX I. List of specimens and localities used to construct phylogenetic relationships within Perognathus parvus and calculate genetic distances within and among mtDNA haplotypes in composite populations.

IDAHO: Cassia Co., (LVT 794, LVT 795)

NEVADA: Esmeralda Co., 11 mi. N, 7 mi. W Dyer, T1S, R34E, S l/2 , NE 1/4 sec. 19; (LVT 1931, LVT 1932, LVT 1933, LVT 1934). Nye Co., 36 mi. N, 24 mi. W Mercury, Nevada Test Site, (LVT 1805, LVT 1806); 30 mi. N, 17 mi. W Mercury, Nevada Test Site, (LVT 1807); 1 mi. W Manhattan, (LVT 1957). White Pine Co., (LVT 1929).

OREGON: Baker Co., 1 mi. S, 5 mi. E Baker, T9S, R40E, (LVT 1955, LVT 1956, LVT 1958). Crook Co., 10 mi. N, 5 mi. E Redmond; T B S , R14E sec. 34, (LVT 1921, LVT 1949, LVT 1950, LVT 1951, LVT 1952). Harney Co., 5 mi. S, 4 mi. W Hines; T24S, R30E sec. 8, (LVT 1923, LVT 1925, LVT 1927). Lake Co., 2 mi. S, 8 mi. E Hampton; T22S, R21E, (LVT1943, LVT 1944, LVT 1945, LVT 1946, LVT 1947, LVT 1948). Malheur Co., 1 mi. N, 1 mi. E Basque Station, (LVT 1937, LVT 1938, LVT 1939, LVT 1940, LVT 1941, LVT 1942).

WASHINGTON: Adams Co., 4 mi. S, 6 mi. E Ritzville; T19N, R36E sec. 3, (LVT 1919, LVT 1920). Douglas Co., 16 mi. N, 5 mi. E Wenatchee; T25N, R21W sec. 25, (LVT 1915, LVT 1916). Okanogan Co., 4 mi. S, 3 mi. W Oroville, Wannacut Lake; T39N, R27E, (LVT 1953, LVT 1954); 1 mi. S, 1.5 mi. W Okanogan; T33N, R26E sec. 19,(LVT 1917, LVT 1918).

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