Molecular biogeography of red deer Cervus elaphus from eastern Europe: insights from mitochondrial DNA sequences

Abstract

European red deer are known to show a conspicuous phylogeographic pattern with three distinct mtDNA lineages (western, eastern and North-African/Sardinian). The western lineage, believed to be indicative of a southwestern glacial refuge in Iberia and southern France, nowadays covers large areas of the continent including the British Isles, Scandinavia and parts of central Europe, while the eastern lineage is primarily found in southeast-central Europe, the Carpathians and the Balkans. However, large parts of central Europe and the whole northeast of the continent were not covered by previous analyses. To close this gap, we produced mtDNA control region sequences from more than 500 red deer from Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and western Russia and combined our data with sequences available from earlier studies to an overall sample size of almost 1,100. Our results show that the western lineage extends far into the European east and is prominent in all eastern countries except for the Polish Carpathians, Ukraine and Russia where only eastern haplotypes occurred. While the latter may actually reflect the natural northward expansion of the eastern lineage after the last ice age, the present distribution of the western lineage in eastern Europe may in large parts be artificial and a result of translocations and reintroduction of red deer into areas where the species became extinct in historical times.

Reconstructing the history of a fragmented and heavily exploited red deer population using ancient and contemporary DNA

“…They also show that only females from the western European red deer lineage colonised Scandinavia, supporting previous findings that the eastern lineage had a more limited dispersal into Europe [14,80]. The population decline seems to have been more prolonged in time than what is reflected in historic documents, indicating that even early human land use practices had an effect on red deer.…”

First ancient DNA sequences of the Late Pleistocene red deer (Cervus elaphus) from the Crimea, Ukraine

“…In all papers quoted above the role played by the Pleistocene refugia for the present pattern of distribution of the red deer populations in Europe is stressed. Out of three European lineages established on the basis of the D-loop sequences, the western and eastern are linked to an Iberian and Balkan refugium, respectively, while the third one is associated with Sardinia or Africa refugia (Skog et al, 2009;Hartl, 2011, Niedziałkowska et al, 2011).…”

Crossing the border? Structure of the red deer (Cervus elaphus) population from the Bavarian–Bohemian forest ecosystem

“…Depending on the length of divergence time such haplogroups may also give rise to the allopatric evolution of species/subspecies as seen for the presumed red deer subspecies, C. e. montanus, whose distribution range (Feulner et al 2004) is part of the distribution range of haplogroup C (Skog et al 2009). A recent study on red deer biogeography which also included NorthEast Europe in the sampling range was able to show the presence of the western red deer matrilineage in Poland, Lithuania and eastern Belarus (Niedziałkowska et al 2011). The authors themselves, however, argue that this outreach of haplogroup A into Eastern Europe may largely be the result of translocations and reintroductions (Niedziałkowska et al 2011).…”

“…A recent study on red deer biogeography which also included NorthEast Europe in the sampling range was able to show the presence of the western red deer matrilineage in Poland, Lithuania and eastern Belarus (Niedziałkowska et al 2011). The authors themselves, however, argue that this outreach of haplogroup A into Eastern Europe may largely be the result of translocations and reintroductions (Niedziałkowska et al 2011). Even though our new data enabled us to determine more precisely the current course of the suture zone between the western and the eastern red deer lineages in the Bavarian-Bohemian forest, the historical suture zone might have been located somewhat further east.…”