Numerical cladistics of the phylogeny of the genus Leishmania Ross, 1903 (Kinetoplastida-Trypanosomatidae). Use of enzyme characteristics

Numerical cladistics is applied to the phyletic analysis of the genus Leishmania Ross, 1903. 128 Old World stocks are characterized by means of electrophoretic techniques using 13 enzymes. The 68 electromorphs detected allow to group the stocks into 17 zymodemes. Data are treated with the Farris' method (1970). The resultant cladogram appears to be coherent. It recognizes classical systematics entities. It sets off two sister groups: major-gerbilli on one hand, donovani-tropica-aethiopica on the other. It confirms L. aethiopica and L. gerbilli as archaic groups and points out a certain divergence between L. infantum and L. donovani s. st.