Abstract
BackgroundIn Europe the mountain hare (Lepus timidus) exists in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of the Alps and in Eastern Europe, but not in Denmark. Interspecific hybridization has been demonstrated between native Swedish mountain hares and introduced brown hares (Lepus europaeus). During the data collection in a study concerning Danish brown hares we identified 16 hares with a single very divergent haplotype.ResultsPhylogenetic analysis shows that the divergent Danish haplotype is most closely related to the Swedish mountain hare. The frequency of Lepus timidus mtDNA haplotype in the Eastern Danish hare populations is estimated to 6%.ConclusionIn contrast to what is known, the Danish hare populations are not pure L. europaeus populations but include introgressed brown hares with Swedish L. timidus mtDNA. The most probable explanation of this is natural migration or translocation of introgressed brown hares from Sweden. The impurity of hare populations has implications for conservation and population genetics.
Highlights
In Europe the mountain hare (Lepus timidus) exists in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of the Alps and in Eastern Europe, but not in Denmark
The subsequent phylogenetic analysis (Figure 2) revealed that the divergent Danish haplotype is grouped with L. timidus samples from across Europe (100% posterior probability in all three independent runs) and most closely related to the Swedish L. timidus haplotypes (100% posterior probability in all three independent runs, green clade in figure 2)
The other Danish haplotypes included in the phylogenetic analysis, the 19 L. europaeus haplotypes, are grouped with the L. europaeus clade as expected, and they are most closely related to German haplotypes (100% posterior probability from three independent runs, red clade in figure 2)
Summary
In Europe the mountain hare (Lepus timidus) exists in Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Finland, parts of the Alps and in Eastern Europe, but not in Denmark. The brown hare (Lepus europaeus Pallas, 1778) is widely distributed throughout Europe, up to 60°N, in Asia Minor and probably south to Israel. It is a popular game animal and its range has expanded to the east both by natural dispersion and by translocations to central and far-east Siberia [1]. The brown hare is common all over Denmark and is the only Lepus species that exists in the country. Since 1960 the hare population has declined drastically in Europe and in Denmark. In Denmark this is reflected by a large drop in annual number of hares shot from more than 400,000 before 1960 to 67,600 in 2004/ 2005 [4]
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