A Molecular Phylogeny Of Shennongjia White Bear Based On Some Mitochondrial Gene Sequences

The Shennongjia white bear is a rare species which only dwell in mountainous region of Shennongjia, China. Since 1954, only 10 of these animals have been spotted. Now there are merely two of them in the zoos. This species is more precious than giant panda. The aspect of Shennongjia white bear is similar to Asia black bear, but the behavior of it is similar to panda. Since the discovery of Shennongjia white bear there are dispute about its classification. Someone believes that it is the albinism of Asiatic black bear, but the majority believes that it is a independent epibiotic species from high antiquity.In order to investigate the phylogenetic relationship of Shennongjia white bear and other bears, total DNA of Shennongjia white bear was extracted and sequenced from hair and feces of Shennongjia white bear. Based on the partial Cyt b, 12S rRNA and D-loop gene sequences obtained from the samples, the authors aligned them using the Clustal W software program. The MEGA software was used to analyze the divergences and base substitutions of the mtDNA genes among the 11 species: Shennongjia white bear, Selenarctos thibetanus(Asiatic black bear), American black bear (Euarctos americanus), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), polar bear (Thalarctos maritimus), sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), raccoon (Procyon lotor), giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), lesser panda (Ailurus fulgens) and spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus). The phylogenetic trees constructed by multiple methods (NJ and MP) supported nearly the same topology. And the phylogenetic tree of D-loop gene also constructed by J.Hein method and Clustal W method. Our molecular results show that the sequence divergence between Shennongjia white bear and Asiatic black bear (Selenarctos thibetanus) is lower than that between other species.