Complex Admixture Preceded and Followed the Extinction of Wisent in the Wild

Wȩcek, Karolina; Hartmann, Stefanie; Paijmans, Johanna L. A.; Taron, Ulrike H.; Xenikoudakis, Georgios; Cahill, James A.; Heintzman, Peter D.; Shapiro, Beth; Baryshnikov, Gennady; Bunevich, Aleksei N.; Crees, Jennifer J.; Dobosz, Roland; Manaserian, Ninna; Okarma, Henryk; Tokarska, Małgorzata; Turvey, Samuel T.; Wójcik, Jan M.; Zyla, Waldemar; Szymura, Jacek M.; Hofreiter, Michael; Barlow, Axel

doi:10.1093/molbev/msw254

Cited by 27 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Additionally, we provide a very large number of new 14 C radiocarbon dated bones for this species (59). Before this study only 32 radiocarbon dated European bison specimens were published (Blant & Wenger, 2010;Bocherens et al, 2015;Ekström, 1993;Herrmann, Pucher, & Nicolussi, 2010;Hofman-Kamińska, Merceron, et al, 2018;Soubrier et al, 2016;Spitzenberger, 2001;Węcek et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adapt or die—Response of large herbivores to environmental changes in Europe during the Holocene

Hofman‐Kamińska

Bocherens

Drucker

et al. 2019

Global Change Biology

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Climate warming and human landscape transformation during the Holocene resulted in environmental changes for wild animals. The last remnants of the European Pleistocene megafauna that survived into the Holocene were particularly vulnerable to changes in habitat. To track the response of habitat use and foraging of large herbivores to natural and anthropogenic changes in environmental conditions during the Holocene, we investigated carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope composition in bone collagen of moose (Alces alces), European bison (Bison bonasus) and aurochs (Bos primigenius) in Central and Eastern Europe. We found strong variations in isotope compositions in the studied species throughout the Holocene and diverse responses to changing environmental conditions. All three species showed significant changes in their δ13C values reflecting a shift of foraging habitats from more open in the Early and pre‐Neolithic Holocene to more forest during the Neolithic and Late Holocene. This shift was strongest in European bison, suggesting higher plasticity, more limited in moose, and the least in aurochs. Significant increases of δ15N values in European bison and moose are evidence of a diet change towards more grazing, but may also reflect increased nitrogen in soils following deglaciation and global temperature increases. Among the factors explaining the observed isotope variations were time (age of samples), longitude and elevation in European bison, and time, longitude and forest cover in aurochs. None of the analysed factors explained isotope variations in moose. Our results demonstrate the strong influence of natural (forest expansion) and anthropogenic (deforestation and human pressure) changes on the foraging ecology of large herbivores, with forests playing a major role as a refugial habitat since the Neolithic, particularly for European bison and aurochs. We propose that high flexibility in foraging strategy was the key for survival of large herbivores in the changing environmental conditions of the Holocene.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adapt or die—Response of large herbivores to environmental changes in Europe during the Holocene

Hofman‐Kamińska

Bocherens

Drucker

et al. 2019

Global Change Biology

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“…For this, genomic information from both modern and ancient specimens is needed. This situation was achieved only around 2016 when the genome of the extant B. bonasus (wisent) was sequenced [7,8], partial genomic information from historical specimens was obtained [9] and ancient Bison specimens from the Upper Pleistocene and the Holocene in Eurasia yielded sequencing results [10][11][12]. As a consequence, 2016 was declared the year of the wisent [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution and Population Diversity of Bison in Pleistocene and Holocene Eurasia: Sex Matters

et al. 2018

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Knowledge about the origin and evolutionary history of the bison has been improved recently owing to several genomic and paleogenomic studies published in the last two years, which elucidated large parts of the evolution of bison populations during the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene in Eurasia. The produced data, however, were interpreted in contradicting manners. Here, we have gathered, reanalyzed and compared previously published or unpublished morphometric and genetic data that have not yet been integrated and that we synthesize in a unified framework. In particular, we re-estimate dates of divergence of mitogenome lineages based on an extended dataset comprising 81 complete ancient bison mitogenomes and we revisit putative gene flow between the Bos and Bison genera based on comparative analyses of ancient and modern bison genomes, thereby questioning published conclusions. Morphometric analyses taking into account sexual dimorphism invalidate a previous claim that Bison schoetensacki was present in France during the Late Pleistocene. Both morphometric and genome analyses reveal that Eurasian bison belonging to different Bison priscus and Bison bonasus lineages maintained parallel evolutionary paths with gene flow during a long period of incomplete speciation that ceased only upon the migration of B. priscus to the American continent establishing the American bison lineage. Our nuclear genome analysis of the evolutionary history of B. bonasus allows us to reject the previous hypothesis that it is a hybrid of B. priscus and Bos primigenius. Based on present-day behavioral studies of European and American bison, we propose that apparently conflicting lines of evidence can be reconciled by positing that female bison drove the specialization of bison populations to different ecological niches while male bison drove regular homogenizing genetic exchanges between populations.

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“…all available specimens from Eurasia identified as either Bb1, Bb2, B. bonasus or B. priscus) available on NCBI and ENA. Two genome sequences were not included, one was chimeric (KY055664, Węcek et al (2016)), and the other being sourced from a hyena coprolite (GAO1/KU886087, Palacio et al (2017)) and with a contentious taxonomic origin (Grange et al, 2018). The resulting final dataset included 131 bison mitochondrial genomes from Eurasia.…”

Section: Sample Collection and Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…European bison (also known as wisent or Bison bonasus) are one of the few megafaunal species to have survived the Late Pleistocene/early Holocene megafaunal extinctions in Europe (Bocherens et al, 2015;Cooper et al, 2015). While formerly distributed across the continent during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene alongside the now extinct steppe bison (Bison priscus), European bison were restricted to two populations representing two subspecies by the end of the 19 th century: one in the Białowieża forest in Eastern Europe (Bison bonasus bonasus) and the other in the Caucasus Mountains (Bison bonasus caucasus) (Pucek, 2004;Krasińska and Krasiński, 2013;Węcek et al, 2016). By the 1920s, both populations were extinct in the wild, with only a handful of individuals -comprising the recent descendants of only 12 individuals -remaining in captivity (Pucek, 2004;Benecke, 2005;Krasińska and Krasiński, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the 1920s, both populations were extinct in the wild, with only a handful of individuals -comprising the recent descendants of only 12 individuals -remaining in captivity (Pucek, 2004;Benecke, 2005;Krasińska and Krasiński, 2013). As a result of this severe bottleneck, modern European bison have significantly reduced genetic diversity (Wójcik et al, 2009;Tokarska et al, 2009Tokarska et al, , 2011Massilani et al, 2016;Soubrier et al, 2016;Węcek et al, 2016). Such dramatic bottleneck events typically obscure long-term patterns of evolutionary history (Chang and Shapiro, 2016), and the evolution and palaeobiogeography of European bison consequently remain poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Untangling the Evolutionary History of European Bison (Bison bonasus)

Loenen

Hofman‐Kamińska

et al. 2018

Preprint

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European bison (Bison bonasus) are the largest endemic vertebrates in Europe, and one of the few megafaunal species to have survived the mass megafaunal extinction during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (12-9 thousand years ago). Untangling their evolutionary history would provide valuable information about the response of European megafauna to periods of rapid environmental change. However, a severe and recent population bottleneck obscures much of the population history that could be inferred from the genomes of modern individuals. While several studies have attempted to analyse ancient European bison populations directly using ancient DNA, their datasets were limited in temporal and geographic range. In this study we present the most comprehensive dataset of ancient European bison mitochondrial genomes to date, with 131 ancient bison samples from across the Eurasian continent covering over 50 thousand years. We reveal patterns of bison distribution and concurrent environmental changes across a broad geographical and temporal range. In particular, population expansions following periods of extensive forest reduction combined with a decrease in anthropogenic pressures suggest that European bison remain preferentially adapted to an open steppe environment through to the present day.

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Complex Admixture Preceded and Followed the Extinction of Wisent in the Wild

Cited by 27 publications

References 64 publications

Adapt or die—Response of large herbivores to environmental changes in Europe during the Holocene

Adapt or die—Response of large herbivores to environmental changes in Europe during the Holocene

The Evolution and Population Diversity of Bison in Pleistocene and Holocene Eurasia: Sex Matters

Untangling the Evolutionary History of European Bison (Bison bonasus)

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