Phylogeography on GIS-Based Distribution of Snake Fauna from Cholistan Desert Pakistan

The current abstract revealed a significant portion of the overall ecological zones that exist in the Cholistan Desert are explored by the authors. Snake samples were collected from selected locations inside the Cholistan Desert. There 50 GPS localities were documented for the phylogeography of snake fauna from the study area. The Tail tip biopsies were collected from the specimen with the help of forceps. DNA was extracted from tail tip tissue and internal organs of dead specimens, e.g., liver and spleen, by using Qiagen amp Tissue Genomic Extraction kit according to manufacturer instructions. During present field survey total 11 species and 36 specimens of snakes were recorded from different habitats of study area. However, a total of six species and ten specimens were successfully amplified, sequenced, and attained accession numbers from GenBank. After trimming ambiguous bases, the obtained Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COX1) fragments of Spalerosophis diadema was 645 bp, Eryx sistanensis was 697 pb, Platyceps rhodorachis 696bp, Ptyas macosa 696bp, Bungarus caeruleus 704bp and Eryx tataricus was 657 bp. Maximum likelihood trees of Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COX1) sequences based on Kimura 2-parameter distance and uncorrected pairwise genetic differences (p-distance) for the studied taxa show clear species identification.