Genomic and morphological analysis reveals long-term mammoth hybridization in British Columbia, CanadaShow others and affiliations
Number of Authors: 182025 (English)In: Biology Letters, ISSN 1744-9561, E-ISSN 1744-957X, Vol. 21, no 9, article id 20250305Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Climate changes profoundly impact species distributions and can drastically alter dynamics between formerly isolated taxa. The evolution of mammoths within North America was characterized by repeated cycles of dispersal and putative gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths. However, as genome-wide studies on mammoths have predominantly focused on Siberia, the consequences of these North American range shifts remain unclear. Here, we generated genome-wide and morphological data for two Late Pleistocene mammoth molars from British Columbia, Canada (BC), and jointly analysed these with previously published data. Our genome-wide analysis (n = 16) revealed gene flow between woolly and Columbian mammoths that would have gone undiscovered based on morphological (n = 48) and mitochondrial analysis (n = 124) alone. Consistent with their hybrid nature, our analyses suggest that these two BC mammoths had elevated genomic diversity. Our results highlight the importance of combining data types to reconstruct past evolutionary events. These findings demonstrate how the geographical range expansion of woolly mammoths resulted in long-term hybridization with local Columbian mammoths and enhance our understanding of the genomic and morphological consequences of climate-mediated dispersal.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 21, no 9, article id 20250305
Keywords [en]
ancient DNA, fossils, hybridization, Mammuthus, Quaternary
National Category
Genetics and Genomics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-247943DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0305ISI: 001577877900001PubMedID: 40994021Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105017279684OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-247943DiVA, id: diva2:2005594
2025-10-102025-10-102025-10-27Bibliographically approved