Partial genomic survival of cave bears in living brown bears.

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  • Axel Barlow
    University of Potsdam
  • James A. Cahill
    University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Stefanie Hartmann
    University of Potsdam
  • Christoph Theunert
    University of California, Berkeley
  • Georgios Xenikoudakis
    University of Potsdam
  • Gloria G. Fortes
    University of Potsdam
  • Johanna Paijmans
    University of Potsdam
  • Gernot Rabeder
    University of Vienna
  • Christine Frischauf
    University of Vienna
  • Aurora Grandal-d'Anglade
    Universidad de A Coruña
  • Ana García-Vázquez
    Universidad de A Coruña
  • Marine Murtskhvaladze
    Ilia State University, Tbilisi
  • Urmas Saarma
    University of Tartu
  • Peeter Anijalg
    University of Tartu
  • Tomaz Skrbinšek
    University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
  • Giorgio Bertorelle
    University of Ferrara
  • Boris Gasparian
    National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia
  • Guy Bar-Oz
    University of Haifa
  • Ron Pinhasi
    University of Vienna
  • Montgomery Slatkin
    University of California, Berkeley
  • Love Dalén
    Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm
  • Beth Shapiro
    University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Michael Hofreiter
    University of Potsdam
Although many large mammal species went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, their DNA may persist due to past episodes of interspecies admixture. However, direct empirical evidence of the persistence of ancient alleles remains scarce. Here, we present multifold coverage genomic data from four Late Pleistocene cave bears (Ursus spelaeus complex) and show that cave bears hybridized with brown bears (Ursus arctos) during the Pleistocene. We develop an approach to assess both the directionality and relative timing of gene flow. We find that segments of cave bear DNA still persist in the genomes of living brown bears, with cave bears contributing 0.9 to 2.4% of the genomes of all brown bears investigated. Our results show that even though extinction is typically considered as absolute, following admixture, fragments of the gene pool of extinct species can survive for tens of thousands of years in the genomes of extant recipient species.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)pages 1563–1570
JournalNature Ecology and Evolution
Volume2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Aug 2018
Externally publishedYes
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