Pre-extinction Demographic Stability and Genomic Signatures of Adaptation in the Woolly Rhinoceros

作者：Edana Lord, Nicolás Dussex, Marcin Kierczak, David Díez‐del‐Molino, Oliver A. Ryder, David W. G. Stanton, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Fátima Sánchez Barreiro, Guojie Zhang, Mikkel‐Holger S. Sinding, Eline D. Lorenzen, Eske Willerslev, А. В. Протопопов, Fedor K. Shidlovskiy, Sergey Fedorov, Hervé Bocherens, Senthilvel K. S. S. Nathan, Benoît Goossens, J. van der Plicht, Yvonne L. Chan, Stefan Prost, Olga Potapova, Irina Kirillova, Adrian M. Lister, Peter D. Heintzman, Joshua D. Kapp, Beth Shapiro, Sergey Vartanyan, Anders Götherström, Love Dalén · 发表于：Current Biology · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.046 · 被引用次数：72 · 研究领域：Genetic diversity and population structure、Identification and Quantification in Food、Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock

Ancient DNA has significantly improved our understanding of the evolution and population history of extinct megafauna. However, few studies have used complete ancient genomes to examine species responses to climate change prior to extinction. The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) was a cold-adapted megaherbivore widely distributed across northern Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene and became extinct approximately 14 thousand years before present (ka BP). While humans and climate change have been proposed as potential causes of extinction [1-3], knowledge is limited on how the woolly rhinoceros was impacted by human arrival and climatic fluctuations [2]. Here, we use one complete nuclear genome and 14 mitogenomes to investigate the demographic history of woolly rhinoceros leading up to its extinction. Unlike other northern megafauna, the effective population size of woolly rhinoceros likely increased at 29.7 ka BP and subsequently remained stable until close to the species' extinction. Analysis of the nuclear genome from a ∼18.5-ka-old specimen did not indicate any increased inbreeding or reduced genetic diversity, suggesting that the population size remained steady for more than 13 ka following the arrival of humans [4]. The population contraction leading to extinction of the woolly rhinoceros may have thus been sudden and mostly driven by rapid warming in the Bølling-Allerød interstadial. Furthermore, we identify woolly rhinoceros-specific adaptations to arctic cl...