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Killer Whale Nuclear Genome and mtDNA Reveal Widespread Population Bottleneck During the Last Glacial Maximum

Moura, A.E.; Janse van Rensburg, C.; Pilot, M.; Tehrani, A.; Best, P.B.; Thornton, M.; Plön, S.; de Bruyn, P.J.N.; Worley, K.C.; Gibbs, R.A.; Dahlheim, M.E.; Hoelzel, A.R.

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Authors

A.E. Moura

C. Janse van Rensburg

M. Pilot

A. Tehrani

P.B. Best

M. Thornton

S. Plön

P.J.N. de Bruyn

K.C. Worley

R.A. Gibbs

M.E. Dahlheim



Abstract

Ecosystem function and resilience is determined by the interactions and independent contributions of individual species. Apex predators play a disproportionately determinant role through their influence and dependence on the dynamics of prey species. Their demographic fluctuations are thus likely to reflect changes in their respective ecological communities and habitat. Here we investigate the historical population dynamics of the killer whale based on draft nuclear genome data for the Northern Hemisphere and mtDNA data worldwide. We infer a relatively stable population size throughout most of the Pleistocene, followed by an order of magnitude decline and bottleneck during the Weichselian glacial period. Global mtDNA data indicates that while most populations declined, at least one population retained diversity in a stable, productive ecosystem off southern Africa. We conclude that environmental changes during the last glacial period promoted the decline of a top ocean predator, that these events contributed to the pattern of diversity among extant populations, and that the relatively high diversity of a population currently in productive, stable habitat off South Africa suggests a role for ocean productivity in the widespread decline.

Citation

Moura, A., Janse van Rensburg, C., Pilot, M., Tehrani, A., Best, P., Thornton, M., …Hoelzel, A. (2014). Killer Whale Nuclear Genome and mtDNA Reveal Widespread Population Bottleneck During the Last Glacial Maximum. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 31(5), 1121-1131. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu058

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 17, 2014
Online Publication Date Feb 4, 2014
Publication Date May 1, 2014
Deposit Date Oct 4, 2013
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Molecular Biology and Evolution
Print ISSN 0737-4038
Electronic ISSN 1537-1719
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 31
Issue 5
Pages 1121-1131
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu058

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






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