Abstract
The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is one of the most widely distributed mammals in which a variety of distinct populations have been described. However, given their currently fragmented distribution and recent history of human-induced population decline, little is known about the events that led to their differentiation. Based on the analysis of whole canid genomes, we examined the divergence times between Southern European wolf populations and their ancient demographic history. We found that all present-day Eurasian wolves share a common ancestor ca 36 000 years ago, supporting the hypothesis that all extant wolves derive from a single population that subsequently expanded after the Last Glacial Maximum. We also estimated that the currently isolated European populations of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and the Dinarics-Balkans diverged very closely in time, ca 10 500 years ago, and maintained negligible gene flow ever since. This indicates that the current genetic and morphological distinctiveness of Iberian and Italian wolves can be attributed to their isolation dating back to the end of the Pleistocene, predating the recent human-induced extinction of wolves in Central Europe by several millennia.
Highlights
Grey wolves (Canis lupus) were once widely distributed as top predators in many ecosystems across the Holarctic [1]
Divergence time estimates based on simulated data with (i) a lower divergence time or (ii) panmixia between these two wolf populations show that G-PhoCS would accurately infer lower split times in those two scenarios (TancIB, electronic supplementary material, table S4)
Our demographic analyses of whole genomes confirm that the history of Eurasian wolf populations has been shaped by significant population fluctuations and divisions
Summary
Grey wolves (Canis lupus) were once widely distributed as top predators in many ecosystems across the Holarctic [1]. We leverage the availability of full genome data from canids worldwide [8,9] to further investigate the demographic history of Southern European wolves, focusing on the Iberian and Italian populations, including the timing of their divergence, levels of gene flow and longterm effective population sizes. Given the unexpected high divergence time between the Portuguese and Spanish wolves (see Results), we performed two additional simulations to verify that G-PhoCS is capable of detecting very recent split times In one of these simulations, the divergence time between the Portuguese and the Spanish wolves was assumed to be 90% smaller than inferred in the main analysis (command line 3 in the electronic supplementary material), and in the other, complete gene flow (full panmixia) exists until the present between the Portuguese and Spanish populations (command line 4 in the electronic supplementary material). We repeated the whole G-PhoCS analysis removing the Spanish wolf sample entirely
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