Abstract
Studying historical and contemporary factors that generate spatial genetic patterns of species provide invaluable insights and understanding of biodiversity patterns. To date, relatively few studies have been done on the spatial genetic structure of small mammals in the northern regions of South Africa. Our model species, the eastern rock elephant shrew, Elephantulus myurus, is a habitat specialist and is also considered to be monogamous and territorial. Here we use this species as a model to determine the genetic structure across the central and northern parts of South Africa. We specifically aim to determine how diversity is shaped by the heterogeneous landscape and biology.
Due to the biology of the eastern rock elephant shrew, we predicted distinct genetic clusters across the distribution range. To test this prediction, we used both mitochondrial and nuclear data. For the mitochondrial study we targeted the control region and used microsatellites to compare it with the nuclear genome.
As no microsatellites were available, we developed a microsatellite library for the species. Our results show historical signature of expansion along the Great Escarpment, followed by recent isolation and confinement to specific localities. Our results support the conservation and protection of distinct populations and/or pockets of unique genetic clades across the range.