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TY - JOUR AU - de Jong, Menno J. AU - Niamir, Aidin AU - Wolf, Magnus AU - Kitchener, Andrew C. AU - Lecomte, Nicolas AU - Seryodkin, Ivan V. AU - Fain, Steven R. AU - Hagen, Snorre B. AU - Saarma, Urmas AU - Janke, Axel PY - 2023 DA - 2023/02/06 TI - Range-wide whole-genome resequencing of the brown bear reveals drivers of intraspecies divergence JO - Communications Biology SP - 153 VL - 6 IS - 1 AB - Population-genomic studies can shed new light on the effect of past demographic processes on contemporary population structure. We reassessed phylogeographical patterns of a classic model species of postglacial recolonisation, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), using a range-wide resequencing dataset of 128 nuclear genomes. In sharp contrast to the erratic geographical distribution of mtDNA and Y-chromosomal haplotypes, autosomal and X-chromosomal multi-locus datasets indicate that brown bear population structure is largely explained by recent population connectivity. Multispecies coalescent based analyses reveal cases where mtDNA haplotype sharing between distant populations, such as between Iberian and southern Scandinavian bears, likely results from incomplete lineage sorting, not from ancestral population structure (i.e., postglacial recolonisation). However, we also argue, using forward-in-time simulations, that gene flow and recombination can rapidly erase genomic evidence of former population structure (such as an ancestral population in Beringia), while this signal is retained by Y-chromosomal and mtDNA, albeit likely distorted. We further suggest that if gene flow is male-mediated, the information loss proceeds faster in autosomes than in X chromosomes. Our findings emphasise that contemporary autosomal genetic structure may reflect recent population dynamics rather than postglacial recolonisation routes, which could contribute to mtDNA and Y-chromosomal discordances. SN - 2399-3642 UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04514-w DO - 10.1038/s42003-023-04514-w ID - de Jong2023 ER -