ANNOUNCEMENTS
This study assesses the phylogenetic position of Lepus nigricollis (Indian wild hare) and evaluates its evolutionary affinities with other species of Genus Lepus using mitochondrial DNA markers. There is a large information gap for this species with limited information about its ecology and no available genetic data. With increasing threat of illegal poaching, fragmented population, loss of habitat, climate change, diseases and high uncertainty in their phylogenetic relationships with other species of genus Lepus, there is an ardent need to generate more genetic data for this species to understand the pattern of speciation and adaptation, and unfold it’s unique biology. For this study, we amplified and generated partial nucleotide sequences of three mitochondrial genes namely; CYTB, 16S rRNA, and COX1 using universal primers by molecular techniques of Polymerase chain reaction and Sanger sequencing. These nucleotide sequences were compared with published sequences of other Lepus species acquired from NCBI GenBank. We reconstructed a phylogenetic tree using Maximum likelihood and Neighbour-Joining approaches and also calculated the pairwise distances using the Kamura-Nei model in MEGA-X. The results were concordant for both the tree construction methods. All the genes showed a similar pattern of monophyletic evolution for L. nigricollis (Indian wild hare) and suggested close evolutionary relationships with Burmese hare( L. peguensis) and Hainan hare (L. hainanus). Apart from improving our understanding of Indian wild hare, this study will also lay a foundation for future studies related to this species and the genus Lepus at larger scale.
Keywords: Lepus nigricollis, Mitochondrial DNA, phylogenetics, molecular markers, Polymerase Chain Reaction, Sanger sequencing
