TY - JOUR
T1 - The evolutionary history of extinct and living lions
AU - de Manuel, Marc
AU - Barnett, Ross
AU - Sandoval-Velasco, Marcela
AU - Yamaguchi, Nobuyuki
AU - Vieira, Filipe Garrett
AU - Mendoza, M. Lisandra Zepeda
AU - Liu, Shiping
AU - Martin, Michael D.
AU - Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S.
AU - Mak, Sarah S. T.
AU - Caroe, Christian
AU - Liu, Shanlin
AU - Guo, Chunxue
AU - Zheng, Jiao
AU - Zazula, Grant
AU - Baryshnikov, Gennady
AU - Eizirik, Eduardo
AU - Koepfli, Klaus-Peter
AU - Johnson, Warren E.
AU - Antunes, Agostinho
AU - Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas
AU - Gopalakrishnan, Shyam
AU - Larson, Greger
AU - Yang, Huanming
AU - O'Brien, Stephen J.
AU - Hansen, Anders J.
AU - Zhang, Guojie
AU - Marques-Bonet, Tomas
AU - Gilbert, M. Thomas P.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Lions are one of the world's most iconic megafauna, yet little is known about their temporal and spatial demographic history and population differentiation. We analyzed a genomic dataset of 20 specimens: two ca. 30,000-y-old cave lions (Panthera leo spelaea), 12 historic lions (Panthera leo leolPanthera leo melanochaita) that lived between the 15th and 20th centuries outside the current geographic distribution of lions, and 6 present-day lions from Africa and India. We found that cave and modern lions shared an ancestor ca. 500,000 y ago and that the 2 lineages likely did not hybridize following their divergence. Within modern lions, we found 2 main lineages that diverged ca. 70,000 y ago, with clear evidence of subsequent gene flow. Our data also reveal a nearly complete absence of genetic diversity within Indian lions, probably due to well-documented extremely low effective population sizes in the recent past. Our results contribute toward the understanding of the evolutionary history of lions and complement conservation efforts to protect the diversity of this vulnerable species.
AB - Lions are one of the world's most iconic megafauna, yet little is known about their temporal and spatial demographic history and population differentiation. We analyzed a genomic dataset of 20 specimens: two ca. 30,000-y-old cave lions (Panthera leo spelaea), 12 historic lions (Panthera leo leolPanthera leo melanochaita) that lived between the 15th and 20th centuries outside the current geographic distribution of lions, and 6 present-day lions from Africa and India. We found that cave and modern lions shared an ancestor ca. 500,000 y ago and that the 2 lineages likely did not hybridize following their divergence. Within modern lions, we found 2 main lineages that diverged ca. 70,000 y ago, with clear evidence of subsequent gene flow. Our data also reveal a nearly complete absence of genetic diversity within Indian lions, probably due to well-documented extremely low effective population sizes in the recent past. Our results contribute toward the understanding of the evolutionary history of lions and complement conservation efforts to protect the diversity of this vulnerable species.
KW - lion
KW - genomics
KW - evolution
KW - PANTHERA-LEO
KW - POPULATION HISTORY
KW - GENETIC DIVERSITY
KW - ANCIENT DNA
KW - AFRICAN
KW - CONSERVATION
KW - PHYLOGEOGRAPHY
KW - ORIGIN
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1919423117
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1919423117
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 32366643
VL - 117
SP - 10927
EP - 10934
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 20
ER -