Evolutionary history of Spalacidae inferred from fossil occurrences and molecular phylogeny |
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| Authors: | Ya HE Shuzhan Hu Deyan Ge Qisen Yang Thomas Connor Caiquan Zhou |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation, Institute of Ecology, Institute of Rare Animals and Plants of School of Life Sciences, China West Normal University, Nanchong, Sichuan, 637009 China;2. Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101 China;3. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 48823 USA |
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| Abstract: | - The Spalacidae is a family of strictly subterranean rodents with a long evolutionary history. It is unclear how ecological changes have influenced the evolutionary history of these mammals, and the phylogenetic relationship of the subfamilies within Spalacidae is controversial.
- Through compiling fossil records, reconstructing molecular phylogeny from molecular data, determining the date of divergence, and analysing their geographical evolution based on molecular data and fossil taxa, we explore the origin and evolutionary process of Spalacidae in detail. Diversification within Spalacidae dates to the Late Oligocene, approximately 25 million years ago, based on molecular data.
- This family originated in South and East Asia in the Late Oligocene, and then split into four clades. The first clade includes Rhizomyinae, which was highly diversified in South Asia in the Early-to-Middle Miocene. Then Rhizomyinae from Asia migrated to northern Africa in multiple waves through the Afro-Eurasian land bridge. Its range largely contracted in the Late Miocene, notably in Central Asia. The second clade includes the extinct Tachyoryctoidinae, which was confined to East and Central Asia, and survived from the Late Oligocene to the Late Miocene. The third clade includes Spalacinae, which have remained around the Mediterranean region since the Late Oligocene with slight trend of northward expansion. The fourth clade is Myospalacinae. Ancient genera of this subfamily in East Asia dispersed eastward during the Late Miocene and reached northern China and south-east Russia.
- The general distribution pattern of Spalacidae has persisted since the Late Miocene. Extinction of Tachyoryctoidinae and clear range contraction of Rhizomyinae in Central and East Asia are likely to have resulted from increased aridification, while the slight northward expansion of Myospalacinae and Spalacinae since the Quaternary was probably a response to a similar northward expansion of suitable vegetation for these animals.
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| Keywords: | Africa climate change dispersal–vicariance analysis Eurasia evolution fossil Spalacidae |
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