4.11. Patterns of phylogeography

The main western (MW) haplotype of the grey partridge was widely found in Europe (VI, Table 3, Fig. 1). The rarer haplotypes were mainly found in a single population each, except for the W17 haplotype. This haplotype was found from Finland and Germany (wild), from Hungary and Italy (farm), and from the Latvian Museum of Natural History, Riga. The Pyrenean population contained one main type (W9) and five other haplotypes, and the Italian wild population two deviant haplotypes (W2, W3). The main eastern (ME) haplotype (VI, Table 3, Fig 1) was found in Bulgaria, Finland (FI1), Greece, and Ireland. Eastern haplotypes were found in Estonia, Kazakhstan, Russia, and on the Island of Öland, Sweden.

Among the western populations, π slightly declined in continental Europe northwards from the Pyrenees to Poland (VI, Table 4), showing a phylogeographic pattern. A similar trend could not be found in the eastern lineage. Haplotype diversity h did not show any south-north clinal pattern. The mutation rate used for the whole CR was 2 %/Myr (Brown et al. 1982, Shields & Wilson 1987a, Randi 1996, Klicka & Zink 1997, Kvist et al. 1999a,b). This led to a divergence time of ca. 1.1 Myr between the lineages. The mean pairwise genetic distance of 0.008886 in the eastern haplotypes led to a divergence time of ca. 440 000 years, and a distance of 0.006576 in the western haplotypes led to ca. 330 000 years. When the mutation rate of 20.8 % was used (Quinn 1992, Wenink et al. 1993), the divergence time was ca. 170 000 years between lineages, and the coalescence time 43 000 and 32 000 years, respectively, between western and eastern haplotypes.