Histórico demográfico e filogeografia em populações brasileiras de Ardea alba egretta

Abstract

The present work studied populations of Ardea alba egretta (Great Egret) family Ardeidae (Aves), sampled from four Brazilian regions situated at different latitudes (Rio Grande do Sul, Pantanal, São Paulo and Amapá). Species-specific primers developed in this study allowed the sequencing of 194 individuals in the Domain I of mitochondrial DNA control region (fragment of 586 bp). Fifty-eight polymorphic sites were found, defining 74 haplotypes. Haplotype Hap9 was the most frequent and the majority of the remaining haplotypes occurred in low frequencies. Average nucleotide diversity was 0.006 and average haplotype diversity 0.908. Distribution of nucleotide diversity followed a descending order: Amapá> Pantanal> São Paulo> Rio Grande do Sul, and the differences between Amapá and the other populations were statistically significant. Results of AMOVA analysis indicated that there is genetic differentiation among populations of the four regions (Fct = 0.02145, p = 0.03324). Values of the pairwise F-statistics showed low genetic structuring among the colonies within each region, but significant structuring among the four regions. It was evident by the analysis of structuring that the genetic composition of Amapá is different from other regions. Significant differences revealed by the tests of Fu's Fs, Tajima's D, R2 and analyses of mismatch distribution, together with star-shaped haplotype networks, indicated signals of demographic expansion in the populations of Rio Grande do Sul and Pantanal. For the Amapá population only biases of Fu's Fs were significant and the curves of "mismatch distribution" can be explained by the unimodal standard distribution. The estimated time of expansion (τ) for Rio Grande do Sul population was 7,195 years before present, for Pantanal population was 32,009 and for Amapá population was 68,674. Obtained results are consistent with the hypothesis that the equatorial region likely was a refuge for populations of this species during the Pleistocene glaciations.