Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on March 5, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(5):1208-1218; doi:10.1093/molbev/msm040
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
24/5/1208    most recent
msm040v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Venkatesan, M.
Right arrow Articles by Rasgon, J. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Venkatesan, M.
Right arrow Articles by Rasgon, J. L.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

Evidence for a Population Expansion in the West Nile Virus Vector Culex tarsalis

Meera Venkatesan*, Catherine J. Westbrook{dagger}, M. Claire Hauer*,{ddagger} and Jason L. Rasgon*,{ddagger}

* The W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
{dagger} Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory, University of Florida
{ddagger} The Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

E-mail: jrasgon{at}jhsph.edu.

Accepted for publication February 26, 2007.

Population genetic structure of the West Nile Virus vector Culex tarsalis was investigated in 5 states in the western United States using 5 microsatellite loci and a fragment of the mitochondrial reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase 4 (ND4) gene. ND4 sequence analysis revealed a lack of isolation by distance, panmixia across all populations, an excess of rare haplotypes, and a star-like phylogeny. Microsatellites revealed moderate genetic differentiation and isolation by distance, with the largest genetic distance occurring between populations in southern California and New Mexico (FST = 0.146). Clustering analysis and analysis of molecular variance on microsatellite data indicated the presence of 3 broad population clusters. Mismatch distributions and site-frequency spectra derived from mitochondrial ND4 sequences displayed pattern's characteristic of population expansion. Fu and Li's D* and F*, Fu's FS, and Tajima's D statistics performed on ND4 sequences all revealed significant, negative deviations from mutation-drift equilibrium. Microsatellite-based multilocus heterozygosity tests showed evidence of range expansion in the majority of populations. Our results suggest that C. tarsalis underwent a range expansion across the western United States within the last 375,000–560,000 years, which may have been associated with Pleistocene glaciation events that occurred in the midwestern and western United States between 350,000 and 1 MYA.

Key Words: Culex tarsalis • genetic structure • population expansion • West Nile virus

Marcy Uyenoyama, Associate Editor


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.