Mitochondrial DNA Divergence Among Chromosomal Species of Aotus

本研究将探讨猫头鹰猴（Aotus）种间的遗传分化及系统发育关系。鸮猴广泛分布在中美洲和南美洲。直到十年前，人们普遍认为猫头鹰猴是一个单一的物种，即a . trivirgatus。然而，最近有人提出，猫头鹰猴代表了至少十种具有不同地理分布的异域物种，可以在表型和基因表型上进行区分。桃的核型发生了巨大的变化，二倍体染色体数目在46到58之间，但其他遗传性状的变化尚未研究。本研究将检查线粒体DNA （mtDNA）和一些相关的基因序列内和之间的几个核型不同的物种。这项工作是重要的，因为使用猫头鹰猴作为疟疾研究的模型，因为染色体重排在这个属的不寻常的性质。

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.