Ancient and modern genomes unravel the evolutionary history of the rhinoceros family

Only five species of the once-diverse Rhinocerotidae remain, making the reconstruction of their evolutionary history a challenge to biologists since Darwin. We sequenced genomes from five rhinoceros species (three extinct and two living), which we compared to existing data from the remaining three living species and a range of outgroups. We identify an early divergence between extant African and Eurasian lineages, resolving a key debate regarding the phylogeny of extant rhinoceroses. This early Miocene (∼16 million years ago [mya]) split post-dates the land bridge formation between the Afro-Arabian and Eurasian landmasses. Our analyses also show that while rhinoceros genomes in general exhibit low levels of genome-wide diversity, heterozygosity is lowest and inbreeding is highest in the modern species. These results suggest that while low genetic diversity is a long-term feature of the family, it has been particularly exacerbated recently, likely reflecting recent anthropogenic-driven population declines.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Liu, Shanlin, Westbury, Michael V., Dussex, Nicolas, Mitchell, Kieren J., Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S., Heintzman, Peter D., Duchêne, David A., Kapp, Joshua D., von Seth, Johanna, Heiniger, Holly, Sánchez-Barreiro, Fátima, Margaryan, Ashot, André-Olsen, Remi, Cahsan, Binia de, Meng, Guanliang, Yang, Chentao, Chen, Lei, van der Valk, Tom, Moodley, Yoshan, Rookmaaker, Kees, Bruford, Michael W., Ryder, Oliver A., Steiner, Cynthia C., Bruins-van Sonsbeek, Linda G. R., Vartanyan, Sergey, Guo, Chunxue, Cooper, Alan, Kosintsev, Pavel, Kirillova, Irina, Lister, Adrian M., Marqués-Bonet, Tomàs, Gopalakrishnan, Shyam, Dunn, Robert R., Lorenzen, Eline D., Shapiro, Beth, Zhang, Guojie, Antoine, Pierre-Olivier, Dalén, Love, Gilbert, M. Thomas P.
Other Authors:	Science for Life Laboratory
Format:	artículo biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Elsevier 2021-09-16
Subjects:	Rhinoceros, Perissodactyl, Conservation genomics, Phylogenomics, Genomic diversity,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10261/251210 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000781 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002809 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011958 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004063 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100009252 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000011 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003355
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