Аннотация:Currently, only three species are known for genus of freshwater mussels Unio in European Russia, but no molecular data useful in taxonomic studies for these species yet exists. We sequenced partial COI genes for 23 individuals of Unio freshwater mussels, collected in Volga basin from 3 regions spaced by distances of 550 km in latitude and 1200 km in longitude (Uglich, river Korozechna; Ugori, river Unza; Buzuluk, river Borovka). Sequences obtained in this study were aligned with those taken from GenBank and analyzed using MrBayes and the MEGA7 programs. At phylogenetic trees, all sequences including obtained in this study fall into three major groups corresponding to three Unio species regardless methods of analysis. Note that sequences of geographically distant populations from West, Central and East Europe form homogenous species clusters supported by 100% bootstrap values on ML and MP trees and by 1.0 PP on Mrbayes tree. Our sequences were distributed as follows: 10 sequences fall into U. pictorum group (5 sequences from Uglich, 3 from Ugori, 2 from Buzuluk); 5 sequences fall into U. crassus group (all from Ugori); 8 sequences fall into U. tumidus group (6 from Buzuluk, 1 from Uglich, 1 from Ugori).
The levels of intra- and intergroup polymorphism for the COI gene estimated from genetic distances in Unio varied in range 0.001 – 0.004 and 0.036 – 0.152. Therefore, the values of intra– and interspecies genetic distances for the genus Unio did not overlap and are close to corresponding values obtained for other mollusks groups.
Thus, the genus Unio is represented in the Volga basin by three species. Our data do not give grounds for the assumption of the existence of hidden species in the genus Unio.
This study was granted by the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 14-50-00029).