• Animal Systematics, Evolution and Diversity
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.153-164
• /
• 1999

One hundred and eleven samples of six subspecies of striped field mouse, Apodemus agrarius Pallas from Korea, China and Russia, were used for the analysis of mitochondrial DNA(mtDNA) fragment patterns resulted from the digestion with eight restriction enzymes by blot hybridization technique. All 32 fragments, nine mtDNA haplotypes, and four major subgroups with the mean divergence value of 0.896 to 1.150% were revealed. In summary, three forms are recognized: [I, subspecies chejuensis (Chejudo island, Korea)], [II, subspecies pallescens (southwestern Korea), coreae (central Korea), and septentrionalis (Russia)], and [III, subspecies manchuricus (northeastern China) and pallidior (northern China)], although some samples of subspecies coreae are somewhat different from almost all samples of six subspecies, and some samples of subspecies pallidior are similar with all samples of subspecies septentrionalis to form same haplotype. It is confirmed that A. agrarius chejuensis is a distinct subspecies, that subspecies coreae (including pallescens) is also a distinct subspecies, that subspecies manchuricus and pallidior are synonyms of subspecies ningpoensis, and that subspecies septentrionalis is a synonym of subspecies ningpoensis, and that subspecies septentrionalis is a synonym of subspecies agrarius. Moreover, it seems that A. agrarius shows constant karyotype, minimal variation in mtDNA genotype, and considerable divergence in morphometric characters, although further analyses with additional samples of A. agrarius in Eurasia will be necessary to determine the degree of variation of these taxonomic characters and to clarify subspecies classification as well.