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    Mitogenomic insights into a recently described and rarely observed killer whale morphotype

    Access Status
    Fulltext not available
    Authors
    Foote, A.
    Morin, P.
    Pitman, R.
    Avila-Arcos, M.
    Durban, J.
    van Helden, A.
    Sinding, M.
    Gilbert, Thomas
    Date
    2013
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
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    Citation
    Foote, A. and Morin, P. and Pitman, R. and Avila-Arcos, M. and Durban, J. and van Helden, A. and Sinding, M. et al. 2013. Mitogenomic insights into a recently described and rarely observed killer whale morphotype. Polar Biology. 36 (10): pp. 1519-1523.
    Source Title
    Polar Biology
    Additional URLs
    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-013-1354-0#page-1
    ISSN
    0722-4060
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/3037
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    Identifying evolutionary divergent taxonomic units, e.g. species and subspecies, is important for conservation and evolutionary biology. The 'type D' killer whale, Orcinus orca, is a rarely observed morphotype with a pelagic, circumpolar subantarctic distribution, making dedicated research and therefore taxonomic study extremely difficult to date. In this study, we used DNA target enrichment hybridisation capture coupled to high throughput sequencing, to obtain the first DNA sequence from the only known museum specimen of this recently described morphotype. The high coverage, complete mitogenome sequence was compared to a previously published global dataset of 139 individuals, indicating that this type is highly divergent to all previously genetically sequenced killer whale forms. The estimated divergence time (390,000 years ago) from its most recent common ancestor with other extant killer whale lineages was the second oldest split within the killer whale phylogeny. This study provides the first genetic support of type D potentially being a distinct subspecies or species of killer whale, although further samples are needed to identify whether there is monophyly of mitogenome sequences and whether nuclear DNA also indicates reproductive isolation. These findings also highlight the value of natural history museum collections and new technologies to investigate the taxonomy of rare, cryptic or difficult to access species

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