Integrative taxonomy of the Phyllotis xanthopygus (Cricetidae, Phyllotini) species complex in Argentina

TETA P; PABLO JAYAT; A. OJEDA; STEPPAN S; OSLAND J; C. LANZONE; A. NOVILLO; OJEDA R.

Virtual

Congreso; 100Th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists; 2021

American Society of Mammalogists

Phyllotis Waterhouse 1837, one of the most studied genera of South American cricetid rodents, includes around 20 species of small to medium sized saxicolous mice. Among them, the distribution of the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse, traditionally referred to P. xanthopygus (Waterhouse 1837), ranges from central Peru to southern Chile and Argentina. Based mostly on molecular evidence, previous studies suggested that P. xanthopygus constitutes a species complex. In this work, we studied the taxonomic status of populations representing this complex in Argentina. Our approach is integrative, including cytogenetic, molecular (cytochrome-b), morphometric, and morphological analyses. We find seven well-supported clades in Argentina, all of them recognized at the species level by the Poisson tree processes analyses. Morphologically, populations were similar, but the seven population separate well in the univariate and multivariate space, and/or on the base of qualitative characters. Our results, coupled with genetic distances, cytogenetic evidence, and geographic distributional patterns, strongly suggest that seven species of this complex occur in Argentina. Five of these taxa have available names; two, P. caprinus and P. bonariensis, are currently recognized to the species level; three, the P. x. posticalis-P. x. rupestris clade, the P. vaccarum clade, and the P. xanthopygus s.s. clade, are recognized as subspecies of P. xanthopygus; and the remaining two represent undescribed species. We discuss our results in the light of all sources of evidence.