Alexei V Abramov

Russian Academy of Sciences | RAS · Zoological Institute

An annotated checklist of 32 extant species from 12 genera of the insectivores (Mammalia, Lipotyphla) of Vietnam is provided. Many recently recorded/described species remain known from the territory of Vietnam only: at least seven species of the white-toothed shrews (C. annamitensis, C. guy, C. kegoensis, C. phuquocensis, C. sapaensis, C. sokolovi,...

1. The current classification of the Felidae was reviewed by a panel of 22 experts divided into core, expert and review groups, which make up the Cat Classification Task Force CCTF of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group. 2. The principal aim of the CCTF was to produce a consensus on a revised classification of the Felidae for use by the IUCN. 3. Based on...

The stone marten (Martes foina) is a small carnivore distributed from Europe to Central Asia. To investigate its phylogeography, we sequenced part of the mitochondrial control-region (485 bp) for 30 individuals from 26 localities broadly covering the species range across continental Eurasia. We identified 16 haplotypes, which comprised two major gr...

Over the past three centuries, people have collected objects and specimens and placed them in natural history museums throughout the world. Taken as a whole, this global collection is the physical basis for our understanding of the natural world and our place in it, an unparalleled source of information that is directly relevant to issues as divers...

In this paper, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of the northern smooth-tailed treeshrew Dendrogale murina, which was sequenced for the first time using the Illumina next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. The total length of the mitochondrial genome is 16,844-16,850 bp and encodes 37 genes, including two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) 12S a...

The phylogeography of the Altai weasel (Mustela altaica) based on mitochondrial control-region sequences was investigated using samples from individuals obtained widely across the species range, including Central Asia, Tibet and southern Siberia. Thirty-four haplotypes were identified among 53 individuals from 32 localities. A maximum-likelihood ph...

The Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg is one of the oldest biological research institutions in Russia, housing the largest zoological collections in the country, both in terms of their size (number of specimens) and global diversity. It is also one of the largest zoological depositories in the world, with over...

Unlabelled: There are only about 7,100 adolescent and adult cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) remaining in the wild. With the majority occurring outside protected areas, their numbers are rapidly declining. Evidence-based conservation measures are essential for the survival of this species. Genetic data is routinely used to inform conservation strategie...

Given the current era of rapid biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms driving the biodiversity dynamics in biodiversity hotspots because these results could guide make conservation actions to protect species under threat from rapid environmental changes and extensive human impacts. To achieve this goal, we have orga...

The upper dentition of Crocidura exhibits polymorphic characters that were revealed for the first time in this study via high-resolution X-ray computed microtomography. Our analyses of 11 Crocidura species and selected Diplomesodon, Suncus and Sylvisorex species from different geographical regions and size groups revealed the most complex character...

The phylogeographic structure of the endemic white-toothed shrews of Vietnam, which belong to the Crocidura kegoensis–C. zaitsevi group, was assessed using mitochondrial and nuclear data. Specimens from 12 localities across Vietnam, including the holotypes of C. kegoensis and C. zaitsevi, were evaluated according to the complete mitochondrial cytoc...

There are only about 7,100 adolescent and adult cheetahs remaining in the wild. With the majority occurring outside protected areas, their numbers are rapidly declining. Evidence-based conservation measures are essential for the survival of this species. Genetic data is routinely used to inform conservation strategies, e.g., by establishing conserv...

As viral genomic imprints in host genomes, endogenous viral elements (EVEs) shed light on the deep evolutionary history of viruses, ancestral host ranges, and ancient viral-host interactions. In addition, they may provide crucial information for calibrating viral evolutionary timescales. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive in silico screeni...

Taxonomic status of gliding squirrels belonging to the “northern” form of Petinomys setosus known from N. Burma and Thailand has been controversial. Earlier it was assigned to a distinct genus Olisthomys, however, currently it is synonymized with P. setosus s. str. from Sumatra and Borneo Islands, and Malay Peninsula. A squirrel collected in Song H...

We live in a world characterised by biodiversity loss and global environmental change. The extinction of large carnivores can have ramifying effects on ecosystems like an uncontrolled increase in wild herbivores, which in turn can have knock‐on impacts on vegetation regeneration and communities. Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) serve important ecosystem...

Based on new molecular data for mitochondrial (Cyt b) and nuclear (IRBP, RAG1) genes, as well as an extensive analysis of morphological material, we accessed actual species taxonomy and relationships among Asian red-cheeked squirrels Dremomys distributed in eastern Indochina and southern China. Phylo-genetic analyses demonstrated that Asian red-che...

As viral genomic imprints in host genomes, endogenous viral elements (EVEs) shed light on the deep evolutionary history of viruses, ancestral host ranges, and ancient viral-host interactions. In addition, they may provide crucial information for calibrating viral evolutionary timescales. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive in silico screeni...

Supplemental Material, S8. Data matrix for the phylogenentic analysis of the Crocidurinae, with 46 characters and 20 species including the out-group species, Myosorex, Neomys and Sorex, and character descriptions. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DO...

Supplemental Material, S4. General information on the principal component analyses performed for the skull shape comparisons in (Crocidurinae/Myosoricinae)/Soricinae and separately in Crocidura. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinne...

Supplemental Material, S3. Configuration of 14 landmarks used for cranial shape analyses and R script for visualisation of the shape transformation (two figs). Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885,...

Supplemental Material, S6. Results of skull shape analysis of 11 Crocidura species (four figures). Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (Soricomorpha, Soricidae) — Crocidurinae phy...

Supplemental Material, S2. Abbreviations used in the text. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (Soricomorpha, Soricidae) — Crocidurinae phylogeny via http://morphobank.org/permali...

Supplemental Material, S1. List of specimens analysed, additional information on specimens and settings for micro-computed tomography scanning. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentitio...

Supplemental Material, S9. Variability of qualitative characters used in the parsimony analysis. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (Soricomorpha, Soricidae) — Crocidurinae phylo...

Supplemental Material, S10. Parsimony analysis results. Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (Soricomorpha, Soricidae) — Crocidurinae phylogeny via http://morphobank.org/permalink/...

Supplemental Material, S5. Results of skull shape analysis of the samples of (Crocidurinae/Myosoricinae)/Soricinae subfamilies (six figures). Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (...

Supplemental Material, S7. Images of the reconstructed surfaces of upper teeth and pulp endocast of 20 shrew species (30 plates). Article: Dental polymorphisms in Crocidura (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) and evolutionary diversification of crocidurine shrew dentition. DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab103 see also: Project: 3885, Shrew dentition (Soricomorpha...

The order Carnivora, which currently includes 296 species classified into 16 families, is distributed across all continents. The phylogeny and the timing of diversification of members of the order are still a matter of debate. Here, complete mitochondrial genomes were analysed to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships and to estimate divergence...

The Altai weasel, Mustela altaicaPallas 1811 (Carnivora: Mustelidae), is widely distributed across open landscapes of central and eastern Asia. The geographical variation in skull morphology and taxonomic composition of this small mustelid remain poorly known. Based on extensive sampling in museum collections, we analyzed morphometric variation in...

Introgressive hybridisation can pose a serious threat to endangered species which have an overlapping distribution such as in the case of two polecat species, Mustela eversmanii, and M. putorius, in Europe. The population size of steppe polecat is known to continuously shrink, whereas its sister species, the European polecat, is still somehow wides...

An annotated checklist of the insectivorous mammals (order Eulipotyphla) of Laos is presented for the first time. The checklist is based on an extensive literature review and an examination of available museum specimens from world collections. Confirmed fauna of eulipotyphlans includes 11 species from 7 genera and 3 families. Additionally, several...

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes have been widely studied to assess the immunological fitness and evolutionary adaptation of animal populations. Among the Canidae, the raccoon dog's adventurous nature, omnivorous behavior, and high variability of intracellular pathogens make it ideal to study selection on MHC class I in a non-model cani...

The study combines available data on species distribution in eastern Indochina to investigate the phylogeographical genetic and morphological diversity of tree rats ( Chiromyscus , Rodentia, Muridae) and to specify their natural ranges. We examined the diversity and distribution of tree rats over its range, based on recent molecular data for mitoch...

For organisms to survive and prosper in a harsh environment, particularly under rapid climate change, poses tremendous challenges. Recent studies have highlighted the continued loss of megafauna in terrestrial ecosystems and the subsequent surge of small mammals, such as rodents, bats, lagomorphs, and insectivores. However, the ecological partition...

Field surveys of mammals in two protected areas of the northeastern limestone region of Vietnam, the Cham Chu (Tuyen Quang Province) and Bac Me (Ha Giang Province) Nature Reserves were conducted in 2018 and 2019. Thirty-five species of small mammals were recorded based both on field observations and on morphological and/or molecular evidence, as fo...

The sand cat, Felis margarita Loche, 1858, is a small desert cat with a fragmented distribution across the Sahara, Arabian Peninsula, and Central Asia. It is currently listed as Least Concern by the IUCN; however, its status in many countries is unknown. Sand cats are generally classified into four subspecies: F. m. margarita (North Africa and Saha...

The mole vole subgenus Ellobius is currently considered to include three species: Ellobius talpinus (distributed from SE Europe and Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan to SW Siberia), Ellobius alaicus (S Tianshan, Pamir‐Alay) and Ellobius tancrei (East and West Central Asia, from the Amu‐Darya to Mongolia and N China). A study focusing on the genetic v...

The patterns of morphometric variation in skulls among different species and among intraspecies geographic populations, of five taxa (four species and one subspecies) of the mole genus Euroscaptor from Vietnam were investigated. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted based on 16 measurements of 140 specimens. Four groups based on skull...

The sika deer (Cervus nippon) is native to eastern Asia and commonly occurs on Hokkaido Island, northern Japan. The nearby localities of the southern Kuril Islands, located east of Hokkaido, have not been regarded as part of the sika deer’s regular range, despite isolated observations and trace evidence described before 2017. Here we consolidate th...

Niviventer andersoni (Thomas, 1911) is an endemic species of China. This taxon has the largest body-size when compared with congeneric species of the genus Niviventer Marshall, 1976. Fossil records showed this species extended to the low altitude regions of Southeast China during the late Quaternary in Chongqing and Guizhou, suggesting its potentia...

The Niviventer fulvescens species complex (NFSC), consisting of abundant and taxonomically ambiguous rodent taxa, is distributed from Southeast Asia to Southeast China. We integrated molecular and morphological datasets to clarify the species composition and variation in the NFSC. Our phylogenetic analyses using molecular data recovered eight genet...

Raccoon dogs, Nyctereutes procyonoides, are native to East Asia, but have been introduced into western Russia and eastern Europe. To determine allelic diversity and elucidate the evolution of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II genes in the raccoon dog, we analysed a 237-bp region of DRB exon 2 from 36 individuals of native and introduc...

No longer Data Deficient: recategorizing the Annamite striped rabbit Nesolagus timminsi as Endangered - Volume 54 Issue 2 - Andrew Tilker, An Nguyen, R.J. Timmins, Thomas N.E. Gray, Robert Steinmetz, Alexei V. Abramov, Nicholas Wilkinson

Although the present-day distributional boundary between the European badger (Meles meles) and the Asian badger (Meles leucurus) is around the Volga River, studies of ancient bone remains have indicated changes in the distribution of M. meles and M. leucurus in the Urals–Volga region during the Holocene. To examine past changes in distribution usin...

We investigated the genetic diversity and distribution pattern of mitochondrial DNA control-region haplotypes across the distributional range of the Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica) in Eastern Eurasia. We identified 23 haplotypes from 65 individuals sampled from 21 localities. Our analyses showed two major phylogeographical groups: group I compri...

The least weasel (Mustela nivalis) is one of the most widely distributed carnivorans. While previous studies have identified distinct western and eastern mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages of the species in the western Palearctic, their broader distributions across the Palearctic have remained unknown. To address the broad‐scale phylogeographical s...

Field surveys in the Song Thanh and Saola Quang Nam Nature Reserves (Quang Nam Province , central Vietnam) were conducted in 2018 and 2019. In total, 197 individuals of small mammals were captured and studied in the field or collected as voucher specimens. Based on these data, an updated checklist of small mammals of Quang Nam Province is provided....

The first genetic study of the holotype of the Gansu short-tailed shrew, Blarinella griselda Thomas, 1912, is presented. The mitochondrial analysis demonstrated that the type specimen of B. griselda is close to several recently collected specimens from southern Gansu, northern Sichuan and Shaanxi, which are highly distinct from the two species of A...

The peculiar acoustic structure of ultrasonic bouts of blind climbing rodents Typhlomys might provide insight on their potential function. We examined 1481 bouts consisting of 1-6 pulses; 49.7% of them were single-pulse bouts. Bout duration and inter-bout interval depended on the number of pulses per bout, whereas period from start of a previous bo...

Rodents are the major remaining mammals in many terrestrial ecosystems after the historical loss of megafauna and large-bodied taxa. Niviventer confucianus is a dominant habitat generalist in natural forests in most of China. It is also recorded as an important vector of diverse zoonotic diseases. Here, three mitochondrial and one nuclear DNA fragm...

Mice of the genus Apodemus are widely distributed across Eurasia. Several species of this genus are hosts of important zoonotic diseases and parasites. The evolutionary history and dispersal routes of these mice remain unclear and the distribution of these species in China was poorly explored in previous studies. We here investigate the divergence...

Four species of wild canids are documented as occurring in Vietnam: Dhole Cuon alpinus, Eurasian Golden Jackal Canis aureus, Red Fox Vulpes vulpes and Raccoon Dog Nyctereutes procyonoides. Except for Dhole, all species are widely distributed globally and are listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Concerned by the paucit...

A morphometric variation in 23 characters of 77 skulls of the Altai weasel Mustela altaica from the delta of Ili River in Kazakhstan has been analysed. Multivariate analyses (nonmetric multidimensional scaling and multivariate allometry) were used to estimate a sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in cranial characters. A high degree of the sexual dimorphi...

Genetic studies of the ferret badgers Melogale conducted in Vietnam have shown that this area is inhabited by three species, M. moschata, M. personata, and M. cucphuongensis, which can be attributed to sibling species (cryptic species). M. personata was found to be widespread not only in southern and central Vietnam, but also in the northern provin...

Genetic studies of the ferret badgers Melogale conducted in Vietnam have shown that this area is inhabited by three species, M. moschata, M. personata, and M. cucphuongensis, which can be attributed to sib-ling species (cryptic species). M. personata was found to be widespread not only in southern and central Viet-nam, but also in the northern prov...

Occurrence of copy number variation (CNV) of gene loci is important in the adaptation of species and populations to their environments. High copy numbers of mammalian genes encoding the digestive enzyme amylase, which plays a role in starch digestion, have been associated with adaptation to high-starch foods. Here, we investigated CNV in the pancre...

Rats of the Niviventer niviventer species complex (NNSC) are among the most abundant small mammals in Southeast Asia and China. More than 20 species or subspecies have been reported in the scientific literature; however, this species complex remains taxonomically ambiguous. With extensive sampling and integrated information from molecular and morph...

The Hainan gymnure Neohylomys hainanensis (Mammalia, Lipotyphla), endemic to Hainan Island (China), is one of the rarest and least-known species within the family Galericidae. The IUCN Red List inferred it as an endangered species due to ongoing population decline caused by natural habitat loss. A recent biodiversity survey has revealed N.hainanens...