Species concepts and the determination of historic gene flow patterns in the Eulemur fulvus (Brown Lemur) complex

Eulmur fulvus, ii complex comprising six subspecies. is a classic example o f species status conferred through evolutionary, taxonomy. We used the phyl ogenetic species concept as an alternative method to the I,biological speci es concept for determining historic patterns of gene flow between the vario us E. fulvus subspecies and for conferring species status. In this paper, w e used population aggregation analysis to determine the proper species part itions and cladistic analysis to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of the different populations in the Eulemur fulvus complex. We sequenced t hree mtDNA gene regions (d-loop. 12S, and cyt- b) and one nuclear region, c asein kinase; for a total of 1247 bases. Through population aggregation ana lysis, we determined that the E. fulvus complex should be split into three units one unit supported by six diagnostic sites comprising E. f. albocolla ris, one unit supported by three diagnostic sites comprising E. f. collaris ; and one unit supported by two diagnostic sites comprising the four other subspecies. Although all six subspecies in the E. fulvus complex share a co mmon ancestor, we found in our cladistic analysis that E. f. collaris and E . f. albocollaris share a common ancestor thai more recently split off fi o m the common ancestor of the foul other E. fulvus subspecies. (C) 1999 The Linnean Society of London.