Mitochondrial DNA Divergence Among Chromosomal Species of Aotus

这项研究将调查猫头猴Aotus物种之间的遗传差异和系统发育关系。猫头鹰猴在中南美洲分布广泛。直到十年前，人们还普遍认为猫头鹰猴只由一个物种组成，即三栖猫头鹰。然而，最近有人提出，猫头鹰猴子代表了至少10个地理分布不同的异地物种，可以同时区分表型和基因。Aotus经历了大量的核型变化，二倍体染色体数量从46到58，但其他遗传性状的变化尚未被研究。这项研究将检查线粒体DNA(MtDNA)和几个核型不同物种内部和之间的几个相关基因序列。这项工作之所以重要，是因为猫头鹰猴子被用作疟疾研究的模型，而且该属的染色体重排具有不同寻常的性质。

This research will investigate genetic divergence and phylogenetic relationships among species of the owl monkey, Aotus. Owl monkeys are widely distributed in Central and South America. Until ten years ago it was generally assumed that owl monkeys comprised a single species, A. trivirgatus. More recently, however, it has been suggested that the owl monkey represents at least ten allopatric species which have distinct geographic distributions and can be distinguished both phenotypically and genotypically. Aotus has undergone an extraordinary amount of karyotypic change with diploid chromosome counts ranging from 46 to 58, but changes in other genetic characters have not yet been investigated. This research will examine mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and several related gene sequences within and among several karyotypically distinct species. This work is important because of the use of the owl monkey as a model for malarial research, and because of the unusual nature of chromosomal rearrangements in this genus.