Multiple genetic divergences and population expansions of a Mediterranean sandfly, Phlebotomus ariasi, in Europe during the Pleistocene glacial cycles.

ABSTRACT: Phlebotomus ariasi is one of the two sandflies transmitting the causative agent of zoonotic leishmaniasis, Leishmania infantum, in France and Iberia, and provides a rare case study of the postglacial re-colonization of France by a Mediterranean species. Four DNA sequences were analysed-mitochondrial cytochrome b (cyt b), nuclear elongation factor-1α (EF-1α) and two anonymous nuclear loci-for 14-15 French populations and single populations from northeast Spain, northwest Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The presence of cryptic sibling species was not revealed by phylogenetic analyses and testing for reproductive isolation between sympatric populations defined by the two most divergent cyt b haplogroups. No locus was shown to be under positive directional or balancing selection and, therefore, m

SUBMITTER: Mahamdallie SS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3186226 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature