Origins of the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus): Impacts of ice-olation and introgression.

ABSTRACT: Herein, we use genetic data from 277 sleeper sharks to perform coalescent-based modeling to test the hypothesis of early Quaternary emergence of the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) from ancestral sleeper sharks in the Canadian Arctic-Subarctic region. Our results show that morphologically cryptic somniosids S. microcephalus and Somniosus pacificus can be genetically distinguished using combined mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers. Our data confirm the presence of genetically admixed individuals in the Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic, and temperate Eastern Atlantic regions, suggesting introgressive hybridization upon secondary contact following the initial species divergence. Conservative substitution rates fitted to an Isolation with Migration (IM) model ind

SUBMITTER: Walter RP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5632604 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature