Population Divergency And Environmental Adaptation Of Greater Long-tailed Hamster (Cricetulus Triton De Winton, 1889)

Greater long-tailed hamster (Cricetulus triton de Winton, 1889) is one of the major rodent pests in farmlands of Northern China. The distribution ranges from northern China to Korea and the adjacent areas of Russia. In China, it mainly distributes from the northern Yangtze River through the North China Plain, Northeast Plain, to Shaanxi plain. The greater long-tailed hamster generally coccupies the farmland, grassland and valley near the cropland, and lives solitarily throughout the year. The general ecology of the C. triton has been extensively investigated, and a preliminary study using RAPD method on its genetic diversity is also reported. There are five subspecies in China, C. t. triton, C. t. fuscipes, C. t. collinus, C. t. incanus and C. t. canus. But the taxonomic status about C. t. canus has been discussed since 1928 when it was reported as Cansumys canus by Allen G.M..We compared the morphological characteristics and partial sequences of the mitochondrial control region(621bp, 502bp) of specimen from different regions. The result show that the most morphological characteristics of the specemen from Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has no distinct difference except few body and skull measurements. Though there is no haplotype shared by the North China Plain population and, NJ tree and genetic distance indicate their relationship is close. The Northwesten population diverged from the North China Plain population about 24, 3000 years ago. The indivuduals in differental populations were influenced by various environmental factors and caused some phenotypic variations. We reached the following conclusion:1. Supported by the results of morphological and molecular biology analysis,the taxonomic status of Cricetulus triton cansus should be accepted.2. Diverged from the North China Plain populations, C. triton cansus might...