Late Pleistocene and Holocene pikas (Mammalia, Lagomorpha) from Europe and the validity of Ochotona spelaea: New insights based on mtDNA analysis

Abstract

Pikas were among small mammals that inhabited mammoth steppes during the last glacial. The evolutionary history of ochotonids in Europe is relatively well studied, although the taxonomic status of many described forms remains ambiguous, and the majority of extant species of the genus Ochotona are poorly represented in the fossil record. The present study aims to analyse the taxonomic relationships of a sample of Late Pleistocene-Holocene pikas based on mtDNA data and to clarify the status of the species described from Europe. A phylogenetic analysis has revealed that pikas form two large clades: one includes O. pusilla and the other includes the extant Asian and North American species. The study of haplotypes has shown similar results. The analysis supports the view that in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene O. pusilla was distributed throughout Europe, and its geographic range has contracted to the east until reaching its modern limits. The analysis of samples provided evidence that O. pusilla had survived in Eastern Europe until relatively recently and disappeared only about 150 years ago. The molecular data inferred from mtDNA do not support the species status of O. spelaea, despite morphological differences possibly related to the particular ecology of the Late Pleistocene.

Eagle owls’ predation within a highly diversified Late Glacial landscape: remains of pikas and hares (Lagomorpha) from the Loutra Almopias Cave (Central Macedonia, Greece)

“…The measurements also do not significantly differ from O. pusilla spelea (Table 4). Research has shown a rather wide intraspecific variability of O. pusilla during the Pleistocene for its representatives dispersed over vast steppe and mountainous areas of Europe (Rabiniak et al, 2023). Thus, from the LAC Ia material, an attribution to a subspecies level is not possible.…”