Post-glacial dispersal patterns of Northern pike inferred from an 8800 year old pike (Esox cf. lucius) skull from interior Alaska

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe biogeography of freshwater fish species during and after late-Pleistocene glaciations relate to how these species are genetically organized today, and the management of these often disjunct populations. Debate exists concerning the biogeography and routes of dispersal for Northern pike (Esox lucius) after the last glaciation. A hypothesis to account for the relatively low modern genetic diversity for E. lucius is post-glacial radiation from refugia, including lakes from within the un-glaciated portions of eastern Beringia. We report the remains of a Northern pike (E. cf. lucius) skull, including bones, teeth, bone collagen and ancient DNA. The remains were preserved at a depth of between 440 and 446 cm in a 670 cm long core of sediment from Quartz Lake, which initiated at~11,200 cal yr BP in interior Alaska. A calibrated accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon age of the collagen extracted from the preserved bones indicated that the organism was dated to 8820 cal yr BP and is bracketed by AMS values from analyses of terrestrial plant macrofossils, avoiding any potential aquatic reservoir effect that could have influenced the radiocarbon age of the bones. Scanning electron microscope images of the specimen show the hinged tooth anatomy typically of E. lucius. Molar C:N (3.5, 1s ¼ 0.1) value of the collagen from the specimen indicated well-preserved collagen and its mean stable nitrogen isotope value is consistent with the known predatory feeding ecology of E. lucius. Ancient DNA in the bones showed that the specimen was identical to modern E. lucius. Our record of E. lucius from interior Alaska is consistent with a biogeographic scenario involving rapid dispersal of this species from glacial refugia in the northern hemisphere after the last glaciation.

The rise and fall of the ancient northern pike master sex determining gene

“…The current geographic distribution of E. lucius results from a post-glacial expansion from three glacial refugia ~ 0.18 to 0.26 Mya, and the North American populations without amhby belong to a monophyletic lineage with a circumpolar distribution originating from the same Eurasian origin 33 . Fossil records from Alaska support the idea of an "out of Alaska" North-American expansion of E. lucius within the last 100,000 years 34 , suggesting that the amhby sex locus could have been lost during this dispersal period (Figure 4C). The complete loss of this sex locus in such a short evolutionary time is unlikely to result from the slow pseudogenization of the MSD gene as was found for instance in the Luzon medaka, Oryzias luzonensis 35 .…”

“…Esociformes are a relatively small but old monophyletic teleost order (Figure 1) that diverged from a common ancestor around 90 million years ago (Mya) and from their sister clade Salmoniformes about 110 Mya 33,34 . With two families, i.e., Esocidae and Umbridae, and 13 well-recognized species 35 , Esociformes are an ecologically important group of freshwater species from the northern hemisphere 33,34 .…”

“…Esociformes are a relatively small but old monophyletic teleost order (Figure 1) that diverged from a common ancestor around 90 million years ago (Mya) and from their sister clade Salmoniformes about 110 Mya 33,34 . With two families, i.e., Esocidae and Umbridae, and 13 well-recognized species 35 , Esociformes are an ecologically important group of freshwater species from the northern hemisphere 33,34 . Following the identification of a male-specific duplication of the anti-Müllerian hormone, amhby, as the MSD gene in northern pike (Esox lucius) 36 , we took advantage of the small number of Esociformes species and their relatively long evolutionary history to explore the evolution of sex determination in this entire lineage.…”

Phylogeography of the Chydorus sphaericus Group (Cladocera: Chydoridae) in the Northern Palearctic

“…Therefore, a northern refugium was very important for survival of diversity in the complex. The Beringian refugium has been proposed for many other species of cladocerans [79, 114] and other freshwater and terrestrial animals [82, 115–116]. …”

The preservation of ancient DNA in archaeological fish bone

“…Interestingly, multiple studies have reported the successful retrieval of aDNA from archaeological fish bone for a variety of species, locations and age (Oosting et al, 2019). aDNA has been consistently amplified from herring (Speller et al, 2012), Pacific salmon (Grier et al, 2013; Johnson et al, 2018; Royle et al, 2018; Speller et al, 2005; Yang et al, 2004), Atlantic cod (Hutchinson et al, 2015; Ólafsdóttir et al, 2014), sturgeon (Ludwig et al, 2009; Nikulina & Schmölcke, 2016; Pagès et al, 2009), Mediterranean trout (Splendiani et al, 2016), Northern pike (Wooller et al, 2015), and other fish taxa (Arndt et al, 2003; Ciesielski & Makowiecki, 2005; Živaljević et al, 2017), in some cases from bones up to 6,000 yBP or older (Johnson et al, 2018; Nikulina & Schmölcke, 2016; Speller et al, 2012; Splendiani et al, 2016; Wooller et al, 2015; Yang et al, 2004). Fish aDNA has also been successfully amplified in metagenomic analyses using bulk bone approaches, even from warm tropical climates (Grealy et al, 2016).…”