Phylogeny of Microtus elbeyli and Assignment to Subspecies Level Based on Mitochondrial Data

Microtus elbeyli was first identified based on the morphological and karyological differences from Elbeyli district of Kilis province (southeastern Anatolia). In the first molecular systematics study of M. elbeyli; mitochondrial Cytochrome-b (CYTB) and Cytochrome oxidase-I (COI) gene analyses were performed in order to clarify the taxonomy of M. elbeyli comparing to other vole species (M. dogramacii, M. hartingi, M. guentheri, M. schidlovskii). Evidences from Bayesian MCMC trees and Median-joining networks pointed that M. elbeyli did not split from M. dogramacii and the mean genetic distance values between M. elbeyli and M. dogramacii were notably low. Although M. elbeyli and M. dogramacii differ regarding karyological features, external morphology, and some skull characteristics, in the light of mitochondrial gene analyses, it was suggested that M. elbeyli (2n = 46) and M. dogramacii (2n = 48) are the same species and the taxonomic status of southeastern Anatolian population was assigned to subspecies as Microtus dogramacii elbeyli.