Mitogenome evolution in the last surviving woolly mammoth population reveals neutral and functional consequences of small population size.

ABSTRACT: The onset of the Holocene was associated with a global temperature increase, which led to a rise in sea levels and isolation of the last surviving population of woolly mammoths on Wrangel Island. Understanding what happened with the population's genetic diversity at the time of the isolation and during the ensuing 6000 years can help clarify the effects of bottlenecks and subsequent limited population sizes in species approaching extinction. Previous genetic studies have highlighted questions about how the Holocene Wrangel population was established and how the isolation event affected genetic diversity. Here, we generated high-quality mitogenomes from 21 radiocarbon-dated woolly mammoths to compare the ancestral large and genetically diverse Late Pleistocene Siberian population and the sm

SUBMITTER: Pecnerova P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6121868 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature