TY  - JOUR
A1  - Horn, Susanne
A1  - Prost, Stefan
A1  - Stiller, Mathias
A1  - Makowiecki, Daniel
A1  - Kuznetsova, Tatiana
A1  - Benecke, Norbert
A1  - Pucher, Erich
A1  - Hufthammer, Anne K.
A1  - Schouwenburg, Charles
A1  - Shapiro, Beth
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
T1  - Ancient mitochondrial DNA and the genetic history of Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) in Europe
JF  - Molecular ecology
N2  - After centuries of human hunting, the Eurasian beaver Castor fiber had disappeared from most of its original range by the end of the 19th century. The surviving relict populations are characterized by both low genetic diversity and strong phylogeographical structure. However, it remains unclear whether these attributes are the result of a human-induced, late Holocene bottleneck or already existed prior to this reduction in range. To investigate genetic diversity in Eurasian beaver populations during the Holocene, we obtained mitochondrial control region DNA sequences from 48 ancient beaver samples and added 152 modern sequences from GenBank. Phylogeographical analyses of the data indicate a differentiation of European beaver populations into three mitochondrial clades. The two main clades occur in western and eastern Europe, respectively, with an early Holocene contact zone in eastern Europe near a present-day contact zone. A divergent and previously unknown clade of beavers from the Danube Basin survived until at least 6000years ago, but went extinct during the transition to modern times. Finally, we identify a recent decline in effective population size of Eurasian beavers, with a stronger bottleneck signal in the western than in the eastern clade. Our results suggest that the low genetic diversity and the strong phylogeographical structure in recent beavers are artefacts of human hunting-associated population reductions. While beaver populations have been growing rapidly since the late 19th century, genetic diversity within modern beaver populations remains considerably reduced compared to what was present prior to the period of human hunting and habitat reduction.
KW  - Conservation Biology
KW  - Phylogeography
KW  - Conservation Genetics
KW  - Population Genetics - Empirical
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.12691
SN  - 0962-1083
SN  - 1365-294X
VL  - 23
IS  - 7
SP  - 1717
EP  - 1729
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  -