SPECIATION AND PARAPHYLY IN WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN HARES (LEPUS-CASTROVIEJOI, L-EUROPAEUS, L-GRANDNATENSIS, AND L-CAPENSIS) REVEALED BY MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA PHYLOGENY

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation among specimens of the northwester n African hare (Lepus capensis schlumbergeri) and thr ee European hare s sampled in Spain (L. castroviejoi and L. granatensis, which are ende mic to the Iberian Peninsula, and L. europaeus) was analyzed using sev en restriction endonucleases. Fourteen haplotypes were found among the 34 animals examined. Restriction site maps were constructed and the p hylogeny of the haplotypes was inferred mtDNA of L. capensis was the m ost divergent, which is consistent with its allopatric African distrib ution and with an African origin of European hares. We estimated that mtDNA in hares diverges at a rate of 1.5-1.8% per MY assuming that the European and African populations separated 5-6 MYBP. Maximum intraspe cies nucleotide divergences were 1.3% in L. capensis, 2.7% in L. castr oviejoi, and 2.3% in L. granatensis but 13.0% in L. europaeus. The lat ter species contained two main mtDNA lineages, one on the branch leadi ng to L. castroviejoi and the other on that leading to L. granatensis. The separation of these two lineages from the L. castroviejoi or L. g ranatensis lineages appears to be much older than the first paleontolo gical record of L. europaeus in the Iberian peninsula. This suggests t hat the apparent polyphyly of L. europaeus is due not to secondary int rogression, but to the retention of ancestral polymorphism in L. europ aeus. The results suggest that L. europaeus either has evolved as a ve ry large population for a long rime or has been fractionated. Such a p attern of persistence of very divergent lineages has also been reporte d in other species of highly mobile terrestrial mammals. As far as mtD NA is concerned, L. europaeus appeals to be the common phylogenetic tr unk which has diversified during dispersion over the European continen t and from which L. castroviejoi and L. granatensis speciated separate ly in southwest Europe.