Extended survival of Pleistocene Siberian wolves into the early 20th century on the island of Honshū

TY - JOUR

T1 - Extended survival of Pleistocene Siberian wolves into the early 20th century on the island of Honshū

AU - Niemann, Jonas

AU - Gopalakrishnan, Shyam

AU - Yamaguchi, Nobuyuki

AU - Ramos-Madrigal, Jazmín

AU - Wales, Nathan

AU - Gilbert, M. Thomas P.

AU - Sinding, Mikkel Holger S.

N1 - ©2020 The Author(s).

PY - 2021/1/22

Y1 - 2021/1/22

N2 - The Japanese or Honshū wolf was one the most distinct gray wolf subspecies due to its small stature and endemicity to the islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. Long revered as a guardian of farmers and travellers, it was persecuted from the 17th century following a rabies epidemic, which led to its extinction in the early 20th century. To better understand its evolutionary history, we sequenced the nuclear genome of a 19th century Honshū wolf specimen to an average depth of coverage of 3.7✕. We find Honshū wolves were closely related to a lineage of Siberian wolves that were previously believed to have gone extinct in the Late Pleistocene, thereby extending the survival of this ancient lineage until the early 20th century. We also detected significant gene flow between Japanese dogs and the Honshū wolf, corroborating previous reports on Honshū wolf dog interbreeding.

AB - The Japanese or Honshū wolf was one the most distinct gray wolf subspecies due to its small stature and endemicity to the islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. Long revered as a guardian of farmers and travellers, it was persecuted from the 17th century following a rabies epidemic, which led to its extinction in the early 20th century. To better understand its evolutionary history, we sequenced the nuclear genome of a 19th century Honshū wolf specimen to an average depth of coverage of 3.7✕. We find Honshū wolves were closely related to a lineage of Siberian wolves that were previously believed to have gone extinct in the Late Pleistocene, thereby extending the survival of this ancient lineage until the early 20th century. We also detected significant gene flow between Japanese dogs and the Honshū wolf, corroborating previous reports on Honshū wolf dog interbreeding.

KW - Biological Sciences

KW - Evolutionary Biology

KW - Genetics

KW - Phylogenetics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097895547&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101904

DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2020.101904

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85097895547

SN - 2589-0042

VL - 24

JO - iScience

JF - iScience

IS - 1

M1 - 101904

ER -