TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lucena-Perez, María
A1  - Bazzicalupo, Enrico
A1  - Paijmans, Johanna
A1  - Kleinman-Ruiz, Daniel
A1  - Dalén, Love
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
A1  - Delibes, Miguel
A1  - Clavero, Miguel
A1  - Godoy, José A.
T1  - Ancient genome provides insights into the history of Eurasian lynx in Iberia and Western Europe
JF  - Quaternary science reviews : the international multidisciplinary research and review journal
N2  - The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is one of the most widely distributed felids in the world. However, most of its populations started to decline a few millennia ago. Historical declines have been especially severe in Europe, and particularly in Western Europe, from where the species disappeared in the last few centuries. Here, we analyze the genome of an Eurasian lynx inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula 2500 ya, to gain insights into the phylogeographic position and genetic status of this extinct population. Also, we contextualize previous ancient data in the light of new phylogeographic studies of the species. Our results suggest that the Iberian population is part of an extinct European lineage closely related to the current Carpathian-Baltic lineages. Also, this sample holds the lowest diversity reported for the species so far, and similar to that of the highly endangered Iberian lynx. A combination of historical factors, such as a founder effect while colonizing the peninsula, together with intensified human impacts during the Holocene in the Cantabrian strip, could have led to a genetic impoverishment of the population and precipitated its extinction. Mitogenomic lineages distribution in space and time support the long-term coexistence of several lineages of Eurasian lynx in Western Europe with fluctuating ranges. While mitochondrial sequences related to the lineages currently found in Balkans and Caucasus were predominant during the Pleistocene, those more closely related to the lineage currently distributed in Central Europe prevailed during the Holocene. The use of ancient genomics has proven to be a useful tool to understand the biogeographic pattern of the Eurasian lynx in the past.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107518
SN  - 0277-3791
SN  - 1873-457X
VL  - 285
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Oxford
ER  -