Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

Abstract

BackgroundResolving the historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) is a complex issue, because patterns inferred from fossils and from molecular data lack congruence. Fossil evidence supports an African origin, and suggests that leopards were already present in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Analysis of DNA sequences however, suggests a more recent, Middle Pleistocene shared ancestry of Asian and African leopards. These contrasting patterns led researchers to propose a two-stage hypothesis of leopard dispersal out of Africa: an initial Early Pleistocene colonisation of Asia and a subsequent replacement by a second colonisation wave during the Middle Pleistocene. The status of Late Pleistocene European leopards within this scenario is unclear: were these populations remnants of the first dispersal, or do the last surviving European leopards share more recent ancestry with their African counterparts?ResultsIn this study, we generate and analyse mitogenome sequences from historical samples that span the entire modern leopard distribution, as well as from Late Pleistocene remains. We find a deep bifurcation between African and Eurasian mitochondrial lineages (~ 710 Ka), with the European ancient samples as sister to all Asian lineages (~ 483 Ka). The modern and historical mainland Asian lineages share a relatively recent common ancestor (~ 122 Ka), and we find one Javan sample nested within these.ConclusionsThe phylogenetic placement of the ancient European leopard as sister group to Asian leopards suggests that these populations originate from the same out-of-Africa dispersal which founded the Asian lineages. The coalescence time found for the mitochondrial lineages aligns well with the earliest undisputed fossils in Eurasia, and thus encourages a re-evaluation of the identification of the much older putative leopard fossils from the region. The relatively recent ancestry of all mainland Asian leopard lineages suggests that these populations underwent a severe population bottleneck during the Pleistocene. Finally, although only based on a single sample, the unexpected phylogenetic placement of the Javan leopard could be interpreted as evidence for exchange of mitochondrial lineages between Java and mainland Asia, calling for further investigation into the evolutionary history of this subspecies.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-018-1268-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ancient DNA from the Asiatic Wild Dog (Cuon alpinus) from Europe

“…Thus, the diversity within species might not be reflected to its full extent. However, a loss of genetic diversity over time has been documented for other species [ 90 , 91 , 92 ], including wolves in North America [ 93 ] and Europe [ 94 ], leopards [ 2 ], giant pandas [ 95 ] and South American mammals [ 96 ]. Our findings indicate a certain genetic separation between Asian and European dholes.…”

“…Many species’ common names are derived from their modern distribution, although this may not reflect the full range of a species’ former distribution, as in the case of the Tasmanian devil [ 1 ]. In fact, during the Pleistocene, many species had a much wider geographical distribution than they do today, for example, leopards [ 2 ] and spotted hyenas [ 3 ], both of which ranged across all of Eurasia and Africa prior to the last glacial maximum. Fossil findings of the Asiatic wild dog, also referred to as dhole or cuon, also indicate a former occurrence throughout both Asia and Europe, and even extending to parts of North America (e.g., [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]).…”

Genetic analyses reveal population structure and recent decline in leopards (Panthera pardus fusca) across the Indian subcontinent

“…Unfortunately, there is still a paucity of information on their population and demography at regional and global scales. Few earlier studies have assessed the subspecies status (Asad et al, 2019;Farhadinia et al, 2015;Paijmans et al, 2018) and genetic diversity (Uphyrkina et al, 2001;Dutta et al, 2013;Mondol et al, 2014) of leopards in the Asian region including India, but comprehensive data is lacking. Much of our knowledge on leopard ecology and demography in the Indian subcontinent come from locationspecific studies (Karanth & Sunquist, 2000;Chauhan et al, 2005;Harihar, Pandav & Goyal, 2009;Wang & Macdonald, 2009;Kalle et al, 2011;Grant, 2012;Mondal et al, 2012;Dutta et al, 2012;Dutta et al, 2013;Thapa et al, 2014;Borah et al, 2014;Selvan et al, 2014;Pawar et al, 2019).…”

Is there low maternal genetic variation in West Asian populations of leopard?

“…Currently, two subspecies P. p. saxicolor = P. p. dathei = P. p. sindica = P. p. ciscaucasica = P. p. tulliana and P. p. nimr = P. p. jarvisi are proposed for West Asia (Kitchener et al 2017). Several recent studies have provided understanding of taxonomy, phylogeography, spatial population structuring, and genetic variability based on ancient samples (Paijmans et al 2018) as well as recent mitogenome sequencing in West Asian leopards, such as Iran (Farhadinia et al 2015), the Caucasus (Rozhnov et al 2011), and Pakistan (Asad et al 2019).…”