Olyagholi Khalilipour - Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Marine Natural Resources, Khorramshahr University of Marine Science and Technology, Iran.
Hamid Rezaei - Department of Environmental Sciences, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.
Afshin Aliadeh Shabani - Department of Environment Faculty of Natural Resources College of Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
Mohammad Kaboli - ۳Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Iran. P.O. Box ۴۱۱۱, Karaj, Iran.

Phylogenetic relationships between Afghan Pika (O. rufescens) and others in the world are still unclear. Morphological phylogeny study of the genus Ochotona by different experts showed the different taxonomic position of the Afghan Pika, but could not determine the taxonomic position of this species. Previous phylogenetic studies based on mtDNA markers showed the different sister groups of the species. In this study, we aimed to unveil the phylogenetic relationship of the Afghan Pika, adding more specimens to the phylogenetic trees. In total, 355 different sequences relating to different pikas were retrieved from GenBank and 25 individuals from Iran were also sequenced for cytb. The phylogenetic tree revealed that samples of individuals from Northern Iran, Southern Iran and the Toulouse lab aggregate in the same clade. Results of K2P showed that the pairwise genetic distance of O. rufescens was closer to that of Conothoa subgenus than to others. It seems that the phylogenetic status of O. rufescens, is more related to the Conothoa subgenera than to Ochotona or Pika.

Ochotona rufescens, taxonomic position, Cytb, mtDNA and Pika