关键词: 亚洲象, 种群遗传结构, 种群遗传多样性, 线粒体DNA, 保护单元, 显著进化单元

Abstract: The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is the most endangered probiscidean, and occurs in China only in Yunnan Province. With non-invasive sampling using elephant dung as a DNA source, the population genetic structure and diversity were observed from PCR analysis of 178 individuals. One haplotype (ML&SY&SM&MY1) is shared among 4 conservation areas Mengla (ML), Shangyong (SY), Simao(SM) and Mengyang(MY), including 114 of 178 individuals, which differs from that found in the Nangunhe(NGH) area. Two highly divergent clades, α and β, of Asian elephants in China are observed using phylogenetic analyses and are verified by neighbour-joining(NJ), maximum parsimony(MP) and maximum likehood(ML) approaches. The result showed that the α clade includes 4 populations (ML, SY, SM and MY) and the β calde only includes the Nangunhe population. This also shows that there is high genetic divergence between the Nangunhe population and the other 4 populations. Mitochondrial DNA data analysis showed that genetic diversities in all of the 5 Asian elephant populations are very low, and resulted from habitat fragmentation which separated the effective genetic flow among the 5 populations.