Abstract: India is the origin to the world’s most notorious invasive mammal, the black rat Rattus rattus. All previous empirical phylogeographic studies were based on very few samples originating from India-creating a paucity of data to extrapolate from. In this first specific phylogeographic study of R. rattus attempted in India, samples were obtained from 18 localities within peninsular India with a focus on the East and West coasts, regions that spread commensal R. rattus globally. The displacement loop (D-loop) and the cytochrome b (Cytb) gene were...
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Topics: 
Ecology
Zoology
Evolutionary biology