Phylogeographic Inference of Insular Mule Deer (<i>Odocoileus Hemionus</i>) Divergence in North America's Desert Southwest

Abstract

Though mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) persist in robust populations throughout most of their North American distribution, nearly 60% of their historic range in México has declined due to habitat loss and unregulated hunting. Two of the six subspecies inhabiting México's deserts and Baja California peninsula are of conservation concern, occurring on land bridge islands in the Pacific Ocean (O. h. cerrosensis on Cedros Island: threatened) and in the Sea of Cortés (O. h. sheldoni on Tiburón Island: endangered). Focusing on the desert southwest (n=449 deer), we obtained 1,611 bp of mtDNA sequence (control region: 583 bp; cytochrome b gene: 1,028 bp) from natural history specimens of Tiburón (n=14) and Cedros (n=15) deer from North American collections to complete the phylogeographic evaluation of the species complex. We found that both island subspecies nest phylogenetically within mainland lineages but demonstrate significantly reduced genetic variation (haplotype diversity for Cedros: p