Genetic variation of the most abundant forest‐dwelling rodents in Central Africa (Praomys jacksoni complex): Evidence for Pleistocene refugia in both montane and lowland forests

At the end of the Miocene (8 Ma), the proportion The African Guineo‐Congolian rainforest biotic zone is the second of C4 biomass in tropical Africa increased (Cerling, 1992), which is largest block of tropical forests in the world after Amazonia (Barthlott, considered to be due to expansion of savanna grasses and partial Lauer, & Placke, 1996). [...] We therefore performed a secondary calibration using the time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of the The number of genetic partitions in the CYTB alignment and the P. [...] We evaluated the influence of priors on the and confirmed the monophyly of the P. [...] mutoni as sister to The time of the first divergence in the genus Praomys producing the remaining Praomys clades. [...] jacksoni sensu stricto is only The comprehensive multi‐locus genetic dataset was also used to found on the right bank of the Congo River in the Kisangani region delimit species in the complex and the multispecies coalescent (Figure 1).