| Investigating the population demographic history of species, which is the main issue of evolutionary biology, is essential for understanding the origin and evolution of biodiversity. Previous studies have found that ancient geological events and climatic fluctuations played an important role in shaping population demographics of current species in North America, Europe and the Tibetan Plateau surroundings of China. However, factors influencing species distributed in Southern China is still controversial.In this paper, we chose four species in Vibrissaphora (V. ailaonica, V. boringii, V. leishanensis and V. liui) that are widely distributed around South China to compare their population demographic history and explore the shaping factors. According to the analyses on mitochondrial DNA (Cytb and ND4) and microsatellite (11 loci) data, we have found that:1) populations of V, ailaonica, V boringii and V. liui presented significant genetic differentiation except V. leishanensis. V. liui populations divided into two branches, V. boringii and V. ailaonica populations were split into three branches and four branches, respectively; 2) Sichuan population of V. boringii, V. ailaonica and V. leishanensis that distributed in southwest China mountainous regions had undergone a rapid expansion, but Hunan and Guangxi populations of V. boringii and V. liui that distributed in the southeast China mountainous regions keep stable; 3) all the lineages of three species (V. boringii, V. ailaonica and V. leishanensis) split at about 2-6 Ma, which is coincident with the climatic shifts during Pliocene; 4) the expansion time of V. boringii, V. leishanensis and two lineages of V. ailaonica are estimated at 0.057-0.025 Ma, 0.542-0.236 Ma,0.364-0.158 Ma and 0.168-0.073 Ma, respectively. These times are coincident with the climatic shifts during Pleistocene.Therefore, we inferred that climate changes of Pliocene and Pleistocene play an important role in the forming population history within the four species. |
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