Turtles are currently the most endangered major clade of vertebrates on earth, and Asian box turtles (Cuora) are in catastrophic decline. Effective management of this diverse turtle clade has been hampered by human-mediated, and perhaps natural hybridization, resulting in discordance between mitochondrial and nuclear markers and confusion regarding species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships among hypothesized species of Cuora. Here, we present analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA data for all 12 currently hypothesized species to resolve both species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships. Our 15-gene, 40-individual nuclear data set was frequently in conflict with our mitochondrial data set; based on its general concordance with published morphological analyses and the strength of 15 independent estimates of evolutionary history, we interpret the nuclear data as representing the most reliable estimate of species boundaries and phylogeny of Cuora. Our results strongly reiterate the necessity of using multiple nuclear markers for phylogeny and species delimitation in these animals, including any form of DNA "barcoding", and point to Cuora as an important case study where reliance on mitochondrial DNA can lead to incorrect species identification.

中文翻译：

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极度濒危的亚洲盒龟科Cuora的物种边界和系统发育关系。

龟是目前世界上濒临灭绝的主要脊椎动物，而亚洲箱龟（Cuora）则处于灾难性的衰退中。人类介导的，也许是自然杂交的方式阻碍了这种多样化的乌龟进化枝的有效管理，从而导致线粒体与核标记之间的不一致，以及有关假设物种之间的物种边界和系统发育关系的混淆。在这里，我们介绍了目前所有12种假设物种的线粒体和核DNA数据分析，以解决物种边界和系统发育关系。我们的15个基因，40个个体的核数据集经常与线粒体数据集发生冲突；基于其与已发表的形态学分析的总体一致性以及15个独立的进化史估计的强度，我们将核数据解释为代表库拉物种边界和系统发育的最可靠估计。我们的结果强烈重申在这些动物中使用多种核标记物进行系统发育和物种定界的必要性，包括任何形式的DNA“条形码”，并指出Cuora是依赖线粒体DNA可能导致错误物种鉴定的重要案例研究。