Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation and Subspecific Taxonomy in the White-handed Gibbon, Hylobates lar

Noninvasive genotyping was employed to see if the five allopatric subspecies of Hylobates lar gibbons could be recognized as genetically differentiated evolutionarily significant units. Phylogenetic and haplotype network analyses were used to study variation of mtDNA control region sequences among 46 allegedly unrelated H. lar gibbons in North American zoos. Although the origins of these gibbons or their parents are unknown, they are the result of multiple independent importations, and it is likely that they include representatives of several subspecies. The export of Hylobates lar gibbons from Asia involved primarily animals referable to the northern (carpenteri) and central/southern (entelloides) subspecies described from Thailand. The mtDNA control region was selected for study as it is unusually variable and phylogenetically informative in most mammals. In this sample of H. lar, however, all individuals studied had sequences very similar to one another and to the two published complete mtDNA sequences for this species. A phylogenetic tree analysis provided only weak evidence of variation and no support for the presence of genetically distinct subspecies in this sample. In contrast, the haplotype network analyses showed more variability and indicated that this sequence may be informative enough to resolve phylogeographic patterns in this species. This can now be tested by genotyping H. lar gibbons of known geographic provenance.