Mustela or Vison? Evidence for the taxonomic status of the American mink and a distinct biogeographic radiation of American weasels Larisa E. Harding * , Felisa A. Smith Department of Biology MSC03 2020, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA article info Article history: Received 19 August 2008 Revised 15 May 2009 Accepted 28 May 2009 Available online 6 June 2009 Keywords: Biogeography Mitochondrial DNA Mustelidae Mustela vison Phylogeny South America Western hemisphere abstract The American mink’s relationship to the weasels in Mustela has been uncertain. Karyological, morpholog- ical, and phylogenetic comparisons to Eurasian Mustela support placing the mink outside the genus as Neovison vison. However, genetic comparisons that incorporate other endemic American Mustela suggest the interpretation of N. vison’s position to Mustela has been handicapped by biased geographic sampling. Here, we analyzed mitochondrial cytochrome-b from all weasels endemic to the Americas, including two poorly known South American species (M. felipei, M. africana), weasels native to North America (M. vison, M. frenata, M. nigripes), Mustela migrant to North America (M. erminea, M. nivalis), palearctic Mustela, and other American members of Mustelidae. Bayesian and likelihood inference methods were used to con- struct a phylogeny of Mustela, and relaxed Bayesian phylogenetic techniques estimated ages of diver- gence within the genus using priors calibrated by fossil ages. Our analyses show that the American mink and the smaller Mustela endemic to the Americas represent a distinct phylogenetic heritage apart from their Eurasian cousins, and biogeographic barriers like the Bering and Panamanian land bridges have influenced the evolutionary history of Mustela in the Americas. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the oral traditions of native North Americans, the American mink (Neovison vison, hereafter Mustela vison) has many names. The Kwakiutl cultures of the Pacific Northwest had legends of ‘Made-like-the-Sun’ or ‘Born-to-be-the-Sun,’ a powerful, yet boast- ful male child of father Sun and mother Sea Lion who used trickery to kill and eat his brother, Young Seal, and also his best friend, Land Otter (Boas, 1887a,b). In Klamath customs, Sqel, or Old Mink, had his heart stolen by the daughter of Le*w (or Lao), a monstrous octopoidal creature dwelling in Crater Lake, and had to outwit and slaughter the aquatic beast to steal it back (Winthrop, 1997; NPS, 2001). The mink is also called a ‘‘son of the seaworld and the skyworld” (McWilliams, 1996) in myths from the Makah tribe of the Olympic peninsula because he dwelt on land but caught fish from the water (Lockard and Barry, 2003), and in the deep South of colonial America, Uncle Remus spun great tales of Brer Mink’s fish- ing ability and how his pride got him swindled out of fish by Brer Tarrypin (Harris, 1883). Just as the mink’s name changes to reflect diverse cultural leg- ends, the taxonomy of the American mink has also varied greatly with the analysis of different morphological and biochemical char- acters. Systematists have often expressed uncertainty that it might not even belong with other weasels in the genus Mustela, or if so, where within this lineage it fits (Youngman, 1982; Masuda and Yoshida, 1994; Baryshnikov and Abramov, 1997; Lariviére, 1999; Marmi et al., 2004; Koepfli et al., 2008). For example, analyses of chromosome G-banding, restriction enzymes, immunoglobin chains, and other biochemical characters have all maintained that M. vison should be phylogenetically outside the Eurasian Mustela (Graphodatsky et al., 1976; Belyaev et al., 1980; Brinck et al., 1983; Lushnikova et al., 1989; Taranin et al., 1991). In contrast, it was considered a close relative to the European mink, M. lutreola, as they share particular adaptive skeletal traits, and the two minks were often placed in the same subgenus Vison (Gray, 1843, 1865; Corbet, 1966; Heptner et al., 1967; Kurtén, 1968; Herán, 1970; Hoffmann, 1976; Youngman, 1982). Molecular evidence has dem- onstrated that the two minks are more distantly connected (Davi- son et al., 1999; Kurose et al., 2000; Sato et al., 2003, 2004; Flynn et al., 2005; Fulton and Strobeck, 2006; Koepfli et al., 2008), and morphological differences removed M. lutreola from Vison (Petrov, 1958), while bacular structure segregated M. vison into a proposed new subgenus Neovison (Baryshnikov and Abramov, 1997). Neovi- son was then elevated to generic status (Abramov, 2000). Charac- terization of the os penis was subsequently used by the same authors to revert the American mink’s generic standing back to Mustela (Baryshnikov et al., 2003), although quickly thereafter, it was officially recognized as Neovison vison (Wozencraft, 2005). 1055-7903/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2009.05.036 * Corresponding author. Fax: +1 1 505 277 0304. E-mail addresses: ltlbear@unm.edu (L.E. Harding), fasmith@unm.edu (F.A. Smith). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 52 (2009) 632–642 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ympev