Notes on a discrepancy in mitochondrial DNA and allozyme differentiation in a pond frog Rana nigromaculata

Abstract

Analyses of complete 1143-base pair sequence of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene demonstrated a sister relationship between Japanese R. nigromaculata and Korean R. plancyi chosenica, but not with Korean R. nigromaculata, while the allozyme data strongly supported the monophyly of the Korean and Japanese populations of R. nigromaculata. We surmise this discordance to be the result of the inheritance of introduced mtDNA and the dilution of introduced nuclear DNA in mixed lineages after past hybridization and genome introgression between the two species, although the direction of introgression is unknown.