Phylogeny, Pedigree, and Population Structure Studies - Application of Molecular Polymorphisms

Two widely separated taxa were used for assessment of molecular polymorphisms - the green monkey Chlorocebus sabaeus, and the sibling dipteran flies Bactrocera tryoni and B. neohumeralis, known collectively as Queensland fruit flys.Microsatellites are hypervariable DNAs that can be used to determine population structure, distinguish sibling species, and verify parental relationships and pedigrees. They are very useful for solving relationships between populations within a species, but relations among species or genera will probably be obscured due to a high degree of homoplasy. To study long range evolution, such as old world monkeys to humans, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) markers may be better candidates. A complete 16,550 bp mtDNA sequence of the green monkey Chlorocebus sabaeus is reported and annotated. MtDNA genome data contributes not only to identification of large scale single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and other mtDNA polymorphisms, but also to primate phylogenetic studies. Microsatellites used for green monkey paternity and pedigree studies were developed by cross-amplification using human primers. Also described here is a study of population structure and species discrimination in the Queensland fruit fly using microsatellites that were identified from a genomic library of Bactrocera tryoni.