ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2010
Ancient DNA analyses exclude humans as the driving force behind late Pleistocene musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) population dynamics.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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57 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Ancient DNA of narrow-headed vole reveal common features of the Late Pleistocene population dynamics in cold-adapted small mammals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Population dynamics and demographic history of Eurasian collared lemmings.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Spatiotemporal influences of climate and humans on muskox range dynamics over multiple millennia.Global change biology · 2022Article
- An Efficient Coalescent Epoch Model for Bayesian Phylogenetic Inference.Systematic biology · 2022Article
- Ancient mitochondrial and modern whole genomes unravel massive genetic diversity loss during near extinction of Alpine ibex.Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Zoonotic pathogens in wild muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and domestic sheep (Ovis aries) from Greenland.Veterinary medicine and science · 2021Article
- A multi-proxy approach to exploring Homo sapiens' arrival, environments and adaptations in Southeast Asia.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Exploring the phylogeography and population dynamics of the giant deer (Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Predicting sample success for large-scale ancient DNA studies on marine mammals.Molecular ecology resources · 2021Article
- The demography of extinction in eastern North American birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Overkill, glacial history, and the extinction of North America's Ice Age megafauna.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- American mastodon mitochondrial genomes suggest multiple dispersal events in response to Pleistocene climate oscillations.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Harnessing paleo-environmental modeling and genetic data to predict intraspecific genetic structure.Evolutionary applications · 2020Article
- Article
- Geography, seasonality, and host-associated population structure influence the fecal microbiome of a genetically depauparate Arctic mammal.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Global Phylogeographic and Admixture Patterns in Grey Wolves and Genetic Legacy of An Ancient Siberian Lineage.Scientific reports · 2019Article
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20 authors.
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Abstract
The causes of the late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions are poorly understood. Different lines of evidence point to climate change, the arrival of humans, or a combination of these events as the trigger. Although many species went extinct, others, such as caribou and bison, survived to the present. The musk ox has an intermediate story: relatively abundant during the Pleistocene, it is now restricted to Greenland and the Arctic Archipelago. In this study, we use ancient DNA sequences, temporally unbiased summary statistics, and Bayesian analytical techniques to infer musk ox population dynamics throughout the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Our results reveal that musk ox genetic diversity was much higher during the Pleistocene than at present, and has undergone several expansions and contractions over the past 60,000 years. Northeast Siberia was of key importance, as it was the geographic origin of all samples studied and held a large diverse population until local extinction at approximately 45,000 radiocarbon years before present ((14)C YBP). Subsequently, musk ox genetic diversity reincreased at ca. 30,000 (14)C YBP, recontracted at ca. 18,000 (14)C YBP, and finally recovered in the middle Holocene. The arrival of humans into relevant areas of the musk ox range did not affect their mitochondrial diversity, and both musk ox and humans expanded into Greenland concomitantly. Thus, their population dynamics are better explained by a nonanthropogenic cause (for example, environmental change), a hypothesis supported by historic observations on the sensitivity of the species to both climatic warming and fluctuations.
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