Species dilemma of musk deer (Moschus spp) in India: molecular data on cytochrome c oxidase I suggests distinct genetic lineage in Uttarakhand compared to other Moschus species

Abstract

Musk deer are of high conservation priority owing to poaching pressure because of its musk pod. Representation of musk deer status using genetics is poorly documented in India, and it is not confirmed as to how many species of musk deer are present. We characterize for the first time, the genetic diversity of musk deer from Uttarakhand using Cytochrome Oxidase sub-unit (COI) gene (486 bp) and compared with the data available for other species. Results revealed the presence of six haplotypes in the Uttarakhand population amongst 17 sequences. Of these, 12 sequences shared the single haplotype. The intra-species sequences divergence was 0.003–0.017, whereas divergence with other species of musk deer was 0.071–0.081. Bayesian phylogenetic tree revealed that samples from Uttarakhand formed a separate clade with respect to other species of musk deer, whereas three species distributed in China clustered in the same clade and showed low sequences divergence, i.e., 0.002–0.061. Because of different ecomorph reported, we suggest using the barcoding based approach for inter and intra-species distinction and delineating species boundaries across the range for effective conservation. Besides, systematic classification, DNA barcoding would also help in dealing wildlife offence cases for disposal of the legal report in court.

KEYWORDS:

• False positive
• genetic diversity
• Indian musk deer
• phylogenetics
• sequence divergence

Acknowledgments

We thank Director, Dean and Research Coordinator, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun for supporting this work. We extend our thanks to Nodal Officer, Wildlife Forensic Cell for the laboratory support. We acknowledge the support of Director and Dean, Gujarat Forensic Sciences University for supporting the study. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the Dr. Srikant Chandola, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force (PCCF-HFF), Government of Uttarakhand for realizing the need of DNA profiling of the key wildlife species of Uttarakhand as well as for issuing necessary office memorandums for the sample collection. We also thank various officer of Forest Department, Government of Uttarakhand for providing samples.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interest. The authors have no funding or financial support to report.