The Caucasus is a relatively isolated region from the point of view of ecology.
Larvae of chironomids (of chironomid midges) Glyptotendipes salinus found in the waters of lake Tambukan in the foothills of the Caucasus, differ from all other insects of this kind of chromosomal rearrangements. It is found by Russian scientists from the Institute of ecology of mountain territories, published an article in the journal Comparative Cytogenetics.
It was collected a sufficient number of larvae of G. salinus, which allowed us to study the structure of their DNA, and mutations that lead to the restructuring of chromosomes. Then biologists have compared the obtained data with the results of studies of chironomid midges that live in the Altai region and Kazakhstan.
It was found that for G. salinus genome of Tambukan characteristic four unique chromosomal rearrangements. In addition, some genetic features were the same as the Altai population as Caucasian. Themselves Caucasian larvae of chironomids were on average two times shorter than larvae from other populations. The result was concluded that the Caucasian G. salinus are a subspecies.
According to the authors, the Caucasus is a relatively isolated region from the point of view of ecology. It can be seen as a kind of “island”, where there are unexpected evolutionary changes.
