科學家揭示北美野狼的進化歷程
作者:
小柯機器人發布時間:2021/1/15 15:56:49
英國倫敦瑪麗皇后大學Laurent A. F. Frantz、澳大利亞阿德萊德大學Kieren J. Mitchell和丹麥哥本哈根大學Angela R. Perri團隊合作探明了野狼是更新世犬科動物的最後殘餘品種。 相關論文在線發表在2021年1月13日的《自然》雜誌上。
在本研究中,為了重建野狼的進化史,研究人員對從13,000年前到50,000年前亞化石遺址發現的五個基因組進行了測序。研究結果表明,儘管野狼在形態上與現存的灰太狼相似,但它們卻擁有高度分化的血統,大約在570萬年前就與現存的狼群分開了。與跨犬科雜交的眾多例子相反,沒有證據表明野狼與北美灰狼或土狼之間存在基因流動。這表明野狼是由與這些物種更新世不同的祖先進化而來。
該研究結果還支持了更新世中野狼的起源,而灰狼、土狼和野犬的祖先則是在歐亞大陸進化的,並且只在近代才在出現在北美。
據介紹,野狼被認為是美洲更新世中最常見、分布最廣的大型食肉動物之一,但對它們的進化或滅絕知之甚少。
附:英文原文
Title: Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage
Author: Angela R. Perri, Kieren J. Mitchell, Alice Mouton, Sandra lvarez-Carretero, Ardern Hulme-Beaman, James Haile, Alexandra Jamieson, Julie Meachen, Audrey T. Lin, Blaine W. Schubert, Carly Ameen, Ekaterina E. Antipina, Pere Bover, Selina Brace, Alberto Carmagnini, Christian Care, Jose A. Samaniego Castruita, James C. Chatters, Keith Dobney, Mario dos Reis, Allowen Evin, Philippe Gaubert, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Graham Gower, Holly Heiniger, Kristofer M. Helgen, Josh Kapp, Pavel A. Kosintsev, Anna Linderholm, Andrew T. Ozga, Samantha Presslee, Alexander T. Salis, Nedda F. Saremi, Colin Shew, Katherine Skerry, Dmitry E. Taranenko, Mary Thompson, Mikhail V. Sablin, Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, Matthew J. Collins, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Anne C. Stone, Beth Shapiro, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Robert K. Wayne, Greger Larson, Alan Cooper, Laurent A. F. Frantz
Issue&Volume: 2021-01-13
Abstract: Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03082-x
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03082-x