Survival and divergence in a small group: The extraordinary genomic history of the endangered Apennine brown bear stragglers.

ABSTRACT: About 100 km east of Rome, in the central Apennine Mountains, a critically endangered population of ∼50 brown bears live in complete isolation. Mating outside this population is prevented by several 100 km of bear-free territories. We exploited this natural experiment to better understand the gene and genomic consequences of surviving at extremely small population size. We found that brown bear populations in Europe lost connectivity since Neolithic times, when farming communities expanded and forest burning was used for land clearance. In central Italy, this resulted in a 40-fold population decline. The overall genomic impact of this decline included the complete loss of variation in the mitochondrial genome and along long stretches of the nuclear genome. Several private and deleterious a

SUBMITTER: Benazzo A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5692547 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature