Phylogeny of wapiti, red deer, sika deer, and other North American cervids as determined from mitochondrial DNA.

Red deer (Cervus elaphus) are divided into three subspecific groups; the first group includes seven subspecies from Europe and northern Africa, the second group includes seven subspecies from central Asia, and the third group includes nine subspecies from eastern Asia, Siberia, and North America. Recognition of the North American wapiti as a species has been denied on the basis of morphological similarity with red deer and the circumpolar distribution of C. elaphus. Sika deer (C. nippon), which are distributed in much of the same range, also share phenotypic and genotypic similarities with the red deer. A comparison of sequences from the control region of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from North American and Siberian wapiti, European red deer, and Asian sika deer was used to construct a phylogenetic relationship among these cervids and other cervids found within North America, including white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), black-tailed deer (O. hemionus columbianus), moose (Alces alces), and caribou (Rangifer tarandus). The mtDNA sequence divergence between wapiti and red deer was 5.60%, between wapiti and sika deer 5.19%, and between sika deer and red deer 5.02%, suggesting that the subspecies status of North American wapiti needs to be reviewed. The mtDNA sequence divergence between white-tailed deer and black-tailed deer was 7.82% and is consistant with earlier mtDNA studies in Odocoileus.