Mitochondrial pseudo-control region in old world eagles (genus Aquila)

The mitochondrial pseudo-control region was analysed in five species of Aquila eagles. Indels caused great length differences in the nonrepetitive part of the region, whereas tandem repeat units were highly conserved among the genus. In a reconstructed phylogenetic tree, the clade formed by A. clanga and A. pomarina showed approximately the same distance to A. chrysaetos as did the clade A. heliaca/nipalensis. In Estonian subpopulations, 12 haplotypes were found among 51 A. pomarina individuals and 7 haplotypes among 8 A. clanga individuals. Nucleotide diversity in A. clanga was greater, and may be caused by decreased breeding density or by gene flow from other subpopulations.