Abstract
The domestic Bactrian camels were treated as one of the principal means of locomotion between the eastern and western cultures in history. However, whether they originated from East Asia or Central Asia remains elusive. To address this question, we perform whole-genome sequencing of 128 camels across Asia. The extant wild and domestic Bactrian camels show remarkable genetic divergence, as they were split from dromedaries. The wild Bactrian camels also contribute little to the ancestry of domestic ones, although they share close habitat in East Asia. Interestingly, among the domestic Bactrian camels, those from Iran exhibit the largest genetic distance and the earliest split from all others in the phylogeny, despite evident admixture between domestic Bactrian camels and dromedaries living in Central Asia. Taken together, our study support the Central Asian origin of domestic Bactrian camels, which were then immigrated eastward to Mongolia where native wild Bactrian camels inhabit.
Highlights
Camels (Camelus, Camelini) contain two extant domestic species, the one-humped dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) and the two-humped Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus)[1,2]
In this study, we characterized for the first time the wholegenome variations of camels across Asia, including domestic Bactrian camels representing a major subset of recognized breeds, extant wild Bactrian camels as well as dromedaries
As the extant wild Bactrian camels are going towards extinction, our research provided extremely valuable genetic resources of the living fossil
Summary
Camels (Camelus, Camelini) contain two extant domestic species, the one-humped dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) and the two-humped Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus)[1,2]. One intuitive possibility was that the extant wild Bactrian camels were the progenitor of the domestic form, which were dispersed from the Mongolian Plateau to the West gradually[7,12] This hypothesis was supported by the presence of Camelid faunal remains at Neolithic sites near Mongolia (MG), it was unclear these were the domestic as opposed to the wild ones[12]. Molecular studies based on mtDNAs9,14 and Y chromosomes[15] discovered dramatic sequence variations between the wild and domestic Bactrian camels, suggesting that the extant wild Bactrian camel was a separate lineage[14] Another possible place of origin was Iran (IRAN)[1], where early skeletal remains of domestic Bactrian camels (around 2500–3000 BC) were discovered[16]. Prehistoric mtDNAs of Bactrian camels supported the idea that the domestication took place in Central Asia rather than in MG or East Asia[17], the incomplete archaeological findings and limited molecular markers provided little decisive information about the actual domestication history
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