The role of intraspecific karyotype variability in reproductive isolation and speciation has been widely studied. Among the 26 genera of Palaearctic mammals, the blind mole rats genus Nannospalax has the highest karyotype variability with 74 chromosomal forms (CFs). Although these CFs have been described in detail, taxonomic effects of chromosomal rearrangements are still lacking, especially among 25 recorded CFs of European N. leucodon superspecies. As genetic discrepancies for most of them are missing, we analyze nucleotide sequence polymorphism of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene between eight N. leucodon CFs. Here we provide for the first time nucleotide sequence data for three CFs: monticola, montanoserbicus and syrmiensis using 40–57-year-old archived samples from our mammalian collection and thus demonstrate the usefulness of archived/museum samples as starting material for DNA analysis. The topology of the phylogenetic tree is congruent with the traditional taxonomic separation of recent blind mole rats with high support. Diversification of N. leucodon cluster into discrete subclusters—CFs—and the extent of evolutionary divergence among them are in accordance with previous findings of complete reproductive isolation between six CFs analyzed here. Additionally, the level of evolutionary divergence among six N. leucodon CFs resembles those recorded among clearly distinct Spalax species and four proposed species of N. ehrenbergi. These facts suggest that they could be cryptic species and bring attention to their conservation and natural resource protection.

中文翻译：

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16S rRNA基因多态性支持小盲mole鼠Nannospalax leucodon superspecies（Rodentia：Spalacidae）内的隐性物种形成。

种内核型变异在生殖分离和物种形成中的作用已得到广泛研究。在古哺乳动物的26个属中，盲mole鼠属Nannospalax属的核型变异性最高，有74种染色体形式（CF）。尽管已经详细描述了这些CF，但仍然缺乏染色体重排的分类学效果，尤其是在25个记录的欧洲蓝藻超种的CF中。由于缺少大多数遗传差异，我们分析了八个N. leucodon CF之间线粒体16S rRNA基因的核苷酸序列多态性。在这里，我们首次提供了三个CF的核苷酸序列数据：monticola，montanoserbicus和syrmiensis使用我们哺乳动物收集的40-57岁的存档样本，因此证明了存档/博物馆样本作为DNA分析的起始材料的有用性。系统发育树的拓扑结构与最近的具有高支持度的盲mole鼠的传统分类学分类是一致的。将白带猪笼草簇分散为离散的亚簇CFs，以及它们之间进化差异的程度与先前分析的六个CFs完全生殖隔离的发现一致。此外，六个N. leucodon CFs之间的进化差异水平类似于在明显不同的Spalax物种和四个拟议物种中记录的那些。N. ehrenbergi。这些事实表明它们可能是隐性物种，并引起人们对其保护和自然资源保护的关注。