Phylogenetic relationship of Asian badger Meles leucurus amurensis revealed by complete mitochondrial genome

Abstract

The Asian badger (Meles leucurus amurensis) is widely distributed throughout the northeast of China, and plays an important role in regulating the prey population stability of forest eco-system as mesopredators. We first determined and annotated the whole mtDNA genome of the Asian badger Meles leucurus amurensis to better understand the evolutionary relationship of this subspecies. The complete mitogenome is 16 497 bp in length, includes 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 rRNA genes and 1 control region. We built the phylogenetic tree of Asian badger and other 10 most closely Mustelidae species.

Keywords:

• Asian badger
• Meles leucurus amurensis
• mtDNA genome
• phylogenetic relationship

Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate Dr. Hui Liu for providing badger tissue samples and technical guidance.

Declaration of interest

This study was supported by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant:DL11BA21). The authors declare no conflict of interests. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.