Genomic DNA Sequences from Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth Reveal Deep Speciation of Forest and Savanna Elephants

Nadin Rohland; David Reich; Swapan Mallick; Matthias Meyer; Richard E. Green; Nicholas J. Georgiadis; Alfred L. Roca; Michael Hofreiter

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000564

Genomic DNA Sequences from Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth Reveal Deep Speciation of Forest and Savanna Elephants

Nadin Rohland, David Reich, Swapan Mallick, Matthias Meyer, Richard E. Green, Nicholas J. Georgiadis, Alfred L. Roca, Michael Hofreiter

Biology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

To elucidate the history of living and extinct elephantids, we generated 39,763 bp of aligned nuclear DNA sequence across 375 loci for African savanna elephant, African forest elephant, Asian elephant, the extinct American mastodon, and the woolly mammoth. Our data establish that the Asian elephant is the closest living relative of the extinct mammoth in the nuclear genome, extending previous findings from mitochondrial DNA analyses. We also find that savanna and forest elephants, which some have argued are the same species, are as or more divergent in the nuclear genome as mammoths and Asian elephants, which are considered to be distinct genera, thus resolving a long-standing debate about the appropriate taxonomic classification of the African elephants. Finally, we document a much larger effective population size in forest elephants compared with the other elephantid taxa, likely reflecting species differences in ancient geographic structure and range and differences in life history traits such as variance in male reproductive success.

Original language	English
Article number	e1000564
Pages (from-to)	1-10
Number of pages	10
Journal	PLoS Computational Biology
Volume	8
Issue number	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000564
Publication status	Published - Dec 2010

Keywords

MALE AFRICAN ELEPHANTS
MITOCHONDRIAL GENOME
MAMMUTHUS-PRIMIGENIUS
LOXODONTA-AFRICANA
PATERNITY SUCCESS
GENETIC-EVIDENCE
LATE QUATERNARY
LATE OLIGOCENE
ANCIENT DNA
POPULATION

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http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000564

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title = "Genomic DNA Sequences from Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth Reveal Deep Speciation of Forest and Savanna Elephants",

abstract = "To elucidate the history of living and extinct elephantids, we generated 39,763 bp of aligned nuclear DNA sequence across 375 loci for African savanna elephant, African forest elephant, Asian elephant, the extinct American mastodon, and the woolly mammoth. Our data establish that the Asian elephant is the closest living relative of the extinct mammoth in the nuclear genome, extending previous findings from mitochondrial DNA analyses. We also find that savanna and forest elephants, which some have argued are the same species, are as or more divergent in the nuclear genome as mammoths and Asian elephants, which are considered to be distinct genera, thus resolving a long-standing debate about the appropriate taxonomic classification of the African elephants. Finally, we document a much larger effective population size in forest elephants compared with the other elephantid taxa, likely reflecting species differences in ancient geographic structure and range and differences in life history traits such as variance in male reproductive success.",

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author = "Nadin Rohland and David Reich and Swapan Mallick and Matthias Meyer and Green, {Richard E.} and Georgiadis, {Nicholas J.} and Roca, {Alfred L.} and Michael Hofreiter",

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AU - Green, Richard E.

AU - Georgiadis, Nicholas J.

AU - Roca, Alfred L.

AU - Hofreiter, Michael

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Genomic DNA Sequences from Mastodon and Woolly Mammoth Reveal Deep Speciation of Forest and Savanna Elephants

Abstract

Keywords

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