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Abstract
Several studies have investigated the differentiation of mitochondrial DNA in Eurasian, African and American cattle as well as archaeological bovine material. A global survey of these studies shows that haplogroup distributions are more stable in time than in space. All major migrations of cattle have shifted the haplogroup distributions considerably with a reduction of the number of haplogroups and/or an expansion of haplotypes that are rare or absent in the ancestral populations. The most extreme case is the almost exclusive colonization of Africa by the T1 haplogroup, which is rare in Southwest Asian cattle. In contrast, ancient samples invariably show continuity with present-day cattle from the same location. These findings indicate strong maternal founder effects followed by limited maternal gene flow when new territories are colonized. However, effects of adaptation to new environments may also play a role.
Highlights
During the past decades, analysis of mitochondrial DNA has become the backbone of molecular-genetic investigations of animal population diversity and history [1]
A recent analysis of Neolithic samples from Iran revealed the same haplogroup diversity as observed in present Southwest Asian cattle [15], while T3 was already predominant in Central and Northwestern Europe during the Neolithic [16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23] (Figure 2)
The combination of data from several sources suggests that the entry of cattle into Europe ca. 8,500 BP
Summary
Analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has become the backbone of molecular-genetic investigations of animal population diversity and history [1]. Complete mtDNA sequences have established an accurate phylogeny and indicated a Southwest-Asian origin for all major T haplogroups, including the African T1 and East-Asian T4 [10,11]. These and other studies identified the rare haplogroups P, Q and R, with P and R most likely derived from European aurochs [12,13,14]. Focusing on the major haplogroups, we combined the results of several regional studies of the cattle mtDNA control region (Table S1) This global meta-analysis allows a few generalizations about shifts.
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