| Summary: | Microtus arvalis is a rodent species that inhabits different areas of Europe and Asia and includes several evolutionary lineages: Western United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italian Italy, Central Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Eastern Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Finland and a distinct lineage Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey coinciding with the distribution of the subspecies Microtus arvalis obscurus. In our research we aimed to determine the evolutionary lineage specific to M. arvalis specimens from the Republic of Moldova. We propose to sequence and perform phylogenetic analysis of the cytochrome b CYTB gene from field voles sampled in Moldova. The cytochrome b gene is often used to identify species and determine phylogenetic relationships between organisms because it possesses limited variability within the species and high variability outside of it. In the Republic of Moldova the genus Microtus is represented by 2 species: M. arvalis and M. rossiaemeridionalis. Since these two are cryptic species cannot be differentiated morphologically and their habitat area overlaps, it was not possible to differentiate them at the time of sampling. Thus, for sequencing were collected 13 samples of the genus Microtus, collection sites being located in Chisinau, Horesti, Malcoci and Piatra Alba. The identification of the 13 specimens was achieved using Sanger sequencing technology resulting in 8 sequences for M. rossiaemeridionalis and 5 for M. arvalis. The 5 sequences of interest with a size of 1106 bp were compared with other 26 CYTB sequences obtained from GenBank that represent the species M. arvalis and are associated with all the evolutionary lineages mentioned above. The phylogenetic analysis of 31 sequences was performed in the R programming environment with the application of the NJ Neighbor Joining method. The obtained phylogenetic tree revealed 5 clusters associated with the described lineages. It was established that the studied specimens from Moldova belonged to the Eastern evolutionary ...
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