Comparative Study of DNA Repetitive Sequences by Means of Restriction Endonucleases Among Populations and Subspecies of Some Lacertid Lizard Species

As was shown earlier with reference to several animal taxa, characterization of highly repetitive DNA sequences by their susceptibility to restriction endonucleases (DNA taxoprinting) does not exhibit any differences between species populations. This method was used in our study on the populations and subspecies of some lacertid lizards: Lacerta raddei, L. saxicola, L. rudis , and L. agilis . These features were shown to be practically indistinguishable in two Armenian populations (Gosh and Khosrov) of L. raddei ; the third population (Egegnadzor) demonstrates some differences. Two subspecies of Caucasian L. rudis and five subspecies of L. agilis inhabiting distant parts of the extensive range have minimal dissimilarities in the taxoprints studied. Comparison of L. saxicola subspecies, three of which inhabit the Caucasus and one the Crimea ( L. s. lindholmi ) presented no significant differences in any of the taxoprints of Caucasian subspecies studied up to now, while Crimean subspecies is significantly dissimilar, not less than other species are dissimilar from each other. It was suggested that L. s. lindholmi may be considered as an individual species. The molecular characteristics of genomic DNA used seem to be useful in animal taxonomy.