Nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies provide evidence for four species of Eurasian badgers (Carnivora) IRENE DEL CERRO,JOSEP MARMI,AI ¨ NHOA FERRANDO,PAVEL CHASHCHIN,PIERRE TABERLET & MONTSE BOSCH Submitted: 14 December 2009 Accepted: 13 May 2010 doi:10.1111/j.1463-6409.2010.00436.x Del Cerro, I., Marmi, J., Ferrando, A., Chashchin, P., Taberlet, P. & Bosch, M. (2010). Nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies provide evidence for four species of Eurasian bad- gers (Carnivora). — Zoologica Scripta, 39, 415–425. The Eurasian badgers (Meles spp.) have a fairly widespread distribution in the Palearctic region and their great morphological variability throughout the vast geographic area has nourished an intense debate about the classification of this taxon. Therefore, the aim of this study was to clarify controversies in Eurasian badger taxonomy by means of a new molecular phylogeny. One-hundred and seventeen individuals of Eurasian badgers from 18 countries throughout Eurasia were sequenced for up to 3257 bp of nuclear DNA over six loci (ACTC, BGN, CFTR, CHRNA1, TS and TTR) and 512 bp of the mitochondrial DNA control region. Statistical and phylogenetic analyses for combined nDNA, mtDNA and the total-evidence data clearly showed a strong genetic differentiation in four well-supported clades, three of which corresponded to allopatric badger species previously defined accord- ing to morphological data: Meles meles Linnaeus, 1758 in Europe; Meles leucurus Hodgson, 1847 in the continental part of Asia, except the south-west part; and M. anakuma Temminck, 1844 in Japan. Up to now, the fourth clade, made up of individuals from south-west Asia, had been considered as a subspecies. Supported by several pieces of mor- phological evidence, the new phylogeny revealed that it is necessary to revise the current taxonomic classification of Meles spp. and suggested that the badgers from south-west Asia should be recognised as a separate species, being renamed M. canescens Blanford, 1875. Corresponding author: Irene del Cerro, Departament de Cie `ncia Animal i dels Aliments, Uni- versitat Auto `noma de Barcelona, Edifici V. Campus de la UAB, 08193-Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Valle `s), Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: irene.delcerro@uab.cat Aı ¨nhoa Ferrando, Departament de Cie `ncia Animal i dels Aliments, Universitat Auto `noma de Bar- celona, Edifici V. Campus de la UAB, 08193-Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Valle `s), Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: ainhoa.ferrando@uab.cat Josep Marmi, Institut Catala ` de Paleontologia, Mo `dul ICP, Campus de la UAB, 08193 – Bellater- ra (Cerdanyola del Valle `s), Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: josep.marmi@icp.cat Pavel V. Chashchin, Ilmensky State Reserve, Russian Academy of Sciences. Ural Branch, 456317 – Miass, Russia. E-mail: olga@ilmeny.ac.ru Pierre Taberlet, Laboratoire d’Ecologie Alpine, CNRS UMR 5553, Universite ´ Joseph Fourier, B.P. 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France. E-mail: pierre.taberlet@ujf-grenoble.fr Montserrat Bosch, Departament de Gene `tica de la Conservacio ´, Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimenta `ries, Ctra. de Cabrils km2, 08348-Cabrils, Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: montse.bosch. gallego@gmail.com Introduction The Eurasian badgers (Meles spp.) have a widespread distri- bution in the Palearctic region, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Japanese archipelago (Corbet 1978; Macdonald 2001). Throughout this vast geographic area, it displays strong genetic divergence (Marmi et al. 2006) and differ- ences in coat colour (Abramov 2003), size and morphology (Abramov & Puzachenko 2005, 2006; Abramov et al. 2009), parasitological data (Abramov & Medvedev 2003), diet (Abramov & Puzachenko 2005 and references therein), habitat (Neal & Cheeseman 1996) and sociability (Johnson et al. 2002). This great variability is frequently ª 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation ª 2010 The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters d Zoologica Scripta, 39, 5, September 2010, pp 415–425 415 Zoologica Scripta