Fig. 2

Maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree for the amino acid sequences of MHC-DRB exon 2. This tree contains the translated sequences for white-tailed deer (Odvi, Odocoileus virginianus; AF082161-AF082175, AF407169-AF407171, MK952679- MK952690), moose (Alal, Alces alces; X82398, X83278, X83279-X83286; [56]), roe deer (Caca, Capreolus capreolus; KM488213-KM488216, KM488218, KM488220-U90925; [57, 75]), and reindeer (Rata, Rangifer tarandus; AF012716-AF012724; [59]) as these are the closest related species to white-tailed deer with MHC-DRB data. It was rooted with the moose outgroup. Node labels are standard bootstrap support (%). Arrows indicate the presence of near-zero internal branch lengths (< 0.012), which should be interpreted with caution. Heatmap colors indicate all white-tailed deer MHC-DRB exon 2 alleles and further correspond to Odvi-DRB allele frequencies found in our population, where red is the most common translated MHC-DRB allele