Authors: N C Ashalakshmi K S Chetan Nag K Praveen Karanth
Publish Date: 2014/07/25
Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 43-58
Abstract
The taxonomy of the Hanuman langur Semnopithecus spp a widely distributed Asian colobine monkey has been in a flux for a long time due to much disagreement between various classification schemes However results from a recent fieldbased morphological study were consistent with Hill’s Ceylon J Sci 21277–305 1939 species level classification scheme Here we tested the validity of S hypoleucos and S priam the two South Indian species recognized by Hill To this end one mitochondrial and four nuclear markers were sequenced from over 72 noninvasive samples of Hanuman langurs and S johnii collected from across India The molecular data were subjected to various tree building methods The nuclear data was also used in a Bayesian structure analysis and to determine the genealogical sorting index of each hypothesized species Results from nuclear data suggest that the South Indian population of Hanuman langur consists of two units that correspond to the species recognized by Hill However in the mitochondrial tree S johnii and S priam were polyphyletic probably due to retention of ancestral polymorphism and/or low levels of hybridization Implications of these results on conservation of Hanuman langurs are also discussedThis work was financially supported by the Department of Biotechnology Government of India BT/PR7127/BCE/08/445/2006 and the ministry of Environment and Forests MoEF Government of India We thank the forest departments of Maharashtra Goa Karnataka Kerala Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh for Forest permits to collect samples We are grateful to Sunitha Ram Dr Uma Ramkrishnan Kartik Bala Manjunath Reddy Ishan Agarwal Aniruddha DattaRoy Achyuthan and R S Harve for providing us with the samples We are also thankful to Avinash Kedumulor for drawing the maps
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