This study analyzed variations of four vole taxa from Anatolia and Southeastern Balkan Peninsula, i.e. Microtus guentheri guentheri, Microtus lydius lydius, Microtus lydius ankaraensis and Microtus hartingi strandzensis, on the basis of 32 qualitative non-metric skull characters. The degree of polymorphism was analyzed by computing the Epigenetic Variability (Vi). The epigenetic divergence amon...

The abundant documentation of small mammals in the Italian peninsula, collected over recent years, furnishes a detailed biochronological sequence mainly from the Late Pliocene onwards. An updated stratigraphic framework is here presented, based on the European small mammal biozonation. The Early Villanyian is characterized by Mimomys hassiacus, M. stehlini, and, later, poorly documented M. polo...

We here report the draft genome sequences of 8 Yersinia pestis subsp. microtus bv. caucasica strains isolated from the East Caucasian (previous name, Dagestan) mountain focus (no. 39), representing the most ancient branch of the 0.PE2 phylogroup circulating in populations of common voles (Microtus arvalis).

The neuropeptide oxytocin has been implicated in the mediation of several forms of affiliative behavior including parental care, grooming, and sex behavior. Here we demonstrate that species from the genus Microtus (voles) selected for differences in social affiliation show contrasting patterns of oxytocin receptor expression in brain. By in vitro receptor autoradiography with an iodinated oxyto...

Mitochondrial DNA translocations to the nucleus (numt pseudogenes) are pervasive among eukaryotes, but copy number within the nuclear genome varies widely among taxa. As an increasing number of genomes are sequenced in their entirety, the origins, transfer mechanisms and insertion sites of numts are slowly being characterized. We investigated mitochondrial transfers within a genetically diverse...

Aim We used newly identified fossil specimens to reconstruct the Quaternary distributions of five Microtus species (Rodentia: Arvicolinae) from the Pacific coast of the United States. We used these distributions to test the hypothesis that when projected onto past, alternative climate surfaces, species distribution models (SDMs) created using only climate variables are concordant with the empir...

The etiologic agent of plague, Yersinia pestis, includes two subspecies, of which Y. pestis subsp. microtus contains the strains that cause only occasional diseases in humans that are not accompanied by human-to-human transmission. Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 19 Y. pestis strains (across 6 biovars of Y. pestis subsp. microtus).