原矛头蝮属Protobothrops于1983年依据鳞被及骨骼特征从原竹叶青属划分出来。该属自建属以来，所包含的物种数有较大变化，许多物种被重新划归，新的物种近年仍被发现。目前对于原矛头蝮属物种的种间及种下关系，主要基于形态学和线粒体基因标记的研究，但两方面的结果解析度均不高且存在一些不一致的地方，而核分子标记的研究又受制于可用的标记数目稀少（不超过5个）。针对上述问题，本项目拟利用我们前期开发的102个脊椎动物通用的核蛋白编码区标记，同时开发100个针对蛇的内含子分子标记，对广泛采样的原矛头蝮属蛇类样品进行分子系统学研究，以克服线粒体标记母系遗传、紧密连锁的缺点。两套核标记的联合使用可以保证数据在种间和种下水平均有信号，从而构建一个全面的、准确度和分辨率都较高的原矛头蝮属系统发育关系。通过比较核分子标记、线粒体基因标记和形态学研究的结果，我们将进一步探讨原矛头蝮属的种间关系、物种划分等。

The genus Protobothrops (Serpentes: Crotalinae) was proposed within Trimeresurus (sensu lato) in 1983 primarily according to scale characteristics and osteology. Since its establishment, the number of species that Protobothrops contains has changed a lot, in that many species have been re-evaluated and synonomized and that several new species have been reported in recent years. Currently, studies on the inter- and intraspecfic taxonomy of Protobothrops were mostly based on morphological comparison and/or mitochondrial gene markers, both of which could not yet reliably resolve the phylogeny of Protobothrops and many incongruences exist. On the other hand, phylogenetic analysis with nuclear markers were limited due to only sparse nuclear markers available (less than 5). To address this problem, we plan to develop 100 novel intron markers for snakes. They, together with the 102 nuclear protein-coding locus markers for vertebrates that we developed previously, will be applied to the widely-collected Protobothrops snake samples, to avoid the drawbacks of mitochondrial markers i.e., maternal inheritance and close linkage. The combine use of two sets of nuclear markers will provide sufficient phylogenetic signals at both inter- and intraspecfic levels, thus enable the construction of a comprehensive, more reliable and better resolved Protobothrops phylogeny. By comparing the results from nuclear markers, mitochondrial markers and morphological studies, the inter- and intraspecfic relationships and taxonomy of Protobothrops will be further discussed.