Name: Dias JM

Biodeserts supervisors: Boratyński Z

Title: Diversity patterns in West Africa: the case of specious Gerbillus rodents

Institution: University of Porto

Status: Completed

Abstract

Most of the species of the rodent Gerbillus, from the Muridae family, are from the Saharan-Sahel which species diversity is poorly knowed. It is very important that we increase the knowledge about the species diversity, distribution and ecology of the Sahara-Sahel to establish priorities for Biodiversity conservation planning. The principal objective of this study is through Molecular sequences of the cytochrome b of the Gerbillus (data retrieved from genebank) and with the resources of bioinformatics and biostatistics programs such as MEGA, HyPhy, PhyML and the phylip package to build a phylogenetic tree which would help us to understand this species from the genetic point of view. The results of this work showed that the although Gerbillus shows in the morphological aspects resemblances between them in the diversity is high and underestimate, so with the help with further studies about this specious rodent and principally morphological studies will help to understand better this species.