Determination of the taxonomic status of Anatololacerta spp. which distributed in southern Anatolia and differentiation between its species by using molecular markers

The lizard family Lacertidae Oppel, 1811, one of the largest families of squamate reptiles, consists of about 280 species and spreads through Eurasia and Africa. Recently, Anatololacerta, mainly distributes in Turkey, was morphologically split into three species; Anatololacerta danfordi (Günther, 1876) (Mersin and Adana province), Anatololacerta anatolica (Werner, 1902) (north of River Menderes and island of Samos of Greece) and Anatololacerta oertzeni (Werner, 1904) (western Taurus, south of River Menderes and islands of Ikaria and Rhodos of Greece). There are a lot of debates, especially its subspecies status about taxonomic status of Anatololacerta. Most of the taxonomic studies were based on morphology and there was a few studies on population genetics of Anatololacerta. The aim of the study was provide data on the genetic structure of Anatololacerta and evaluate taxonomic status of populations situated on western Taurus, Turkey. For this purpose, mitochondrial DNA 16S (ribosomal RNA) and nuclear DNA C-mos (Oocyte mutaration factor) sequences were used. 18 and 8 haplotypes for mtDNA 16S rRNA and C-mos gene regions were identified respectively. Phylogenetic analyses were carried out using Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian Inference (BI) methods. The phylogenetic relationships pointed out four lineages of Anatololacerta. This genetic structuring show us to evaluate the two populations as an "new clades", one of them is from Korkuteli (Antalya), the other one is from Akseki (Antalya), Sertavul Pass (Karaman), Avsallar (Antalya), Gazipaşa (Antalya), Manavgat (Oymapınar Dam-Antalya), Konaklı (Antalya) and Gülnar (Mersin) except A. danfordi and A. oertzeni which have been morphologically identified. Keywords : Anatololacerta, mtDNA, nDNA, Population Genetics, Systematics, Molecular Phylogeny.