Middle Pleistocene genome calibrates a revised evolutionary history of extinct cave bears

Barlow, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-5532-9458, Paijmans, J.L.A., Alberti, F., Gasparyan, B., Bar-Oz, G., Pinhasi, R., Foronova, I., Puzachenko, A.Y., Pacher, M., Dalén, L., Baryshnikov, G. and Hofreiter, M., 2021. Middle Pleistocene genome calibrates a revised evolutionary history of extinct cave bears. Current Biology. ISSN 0960-9822

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Abstract

Palaeogenomes provide the potential to study evolutionary processes in real time, but this potential is limited by our ability to recover genetic data over extended timescales.1 As a consequence, most studies so far have focused on samples of Late Pleistocene or Holocene age, which covers only a small part of the history of many clades and species. Here, we report the recovery of a low coverage palaeogenome from the petrous bone of a ∼360,000 year old cave bear from Kudaro 1 cave in the Caucasus Mountains. Analysis of this genome alongside those of several Late Pleistocene cave bears reveals widespread mito-nuclear discordance in this group. Using the time interval between Middle and Late Pleistocene cave bear genomes, we directly estimate ursid nuclear and mitochondrial substitution rates to calibrate their respective phylogenies. This reveals post-divergence mitochondrial transfer as the dominant factor explaining their mito-nuclear discordance. Interestingly, these transfer events were not accompanied by large-scale nuclear introgression. However, we do detect additional instances of nuclear admixture among other cave bear lineages, and between cave bears and brown bears, which are not associated with mitochondrial exchange. Genomic data obtained from the Middle Pleistocene cave bear petrous bone has thus facilitated a revised evolutionary history of this extinct megafaunal group. Moreover, it suggests that petrous bones may provide a means of extending both the magnitude and time depth of palaeogenome retrieval over substantial portions of the evolutionary histories of many mammalian clades.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Current Biology
Creators:	Barlow, A., Paijmans, J.L.A., Alberti, F., Gasparyan, B., Bar-Oz, G., Pinhasi, R., Foronova, I., Puzachenko, A.Y., Pacher, M., Dalén, L., Baryshnikov, G. and Hofreiter, M.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	15 February 2021
ISSN:	0960-9822
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.073 DOI 1421942 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Science and Technology
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	10 Mar 2021 10:57
Last Modified:	15 Feb 2022 03:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/42469

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