Genomic Approaches Reveal an Endemic Subpopulation of Gray Wolves in Southern China

Guo-Dong Wang; Ming Zhang; Xuan Wang; Melinda A Yang; Peng Cao; Feng Liu; Heng Lu; Xiaotian Feng; Pontus Skoglund; Lu Wang; Qiaomei Fu; Ya-Ping Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.09.008

Genomic Approaches Reveal an Endemic Subpopulation of Gray Wolves in Southern China

iScience. 2019 Oct 25:20:110-118. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.09.008. Epub 2019 Sep 10.

Authors

Guo-Dong Wang¹, Ming Zhang², Xuan Wang³, Melinda A Yang⁴, Peng Cao⁵, Feng Liu⁵, Heng Lu⁶, Xiaotian Feng⁵, Pontus Skoglund⁷, Lu Wang⁸, Qiaomei Fu⁹, Ya-Ping Zhang¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China; Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China.
² Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China; Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China; Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China; Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China.
⁶ Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
⁷ The Francis Crick Institute, London NW1 1AT, UK.
⁸ State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-Resources in Yunnan, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China.
⁹ Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China; Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. Electronic address: fuqiaomei@ivpp.ac.cn.
¹⁰ State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China; Center for Excellence in Animal Evolution and Genetics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China. Electronic address: zhangyp@mail.kiz.ac.cn.

Abstract

Although gray wolves (Canis lupus) are one of the most widely distributed terrestrial mammals, their origins in China are not well understood. We sequenced six specimens from wolf skins, showing that gray wolves from Southern China (SC) derive from a single lineage, distinct from gray wolves from the Tibetan Plateau and Northern China, suggesting that SC gray wolves may form a distinct subpopulation. Of SC gray wolves, one wolf from Zhejiang carries a genetic component from a canid and had gene flow from a population related to or further diverged from wolves than the dhole. This may indicate that interspecific gene flow likely played an important role in shaping the speciation patterns and population structure in the genus Canis. Our study is the first to survey museum gray wolves' genomes from Southern China, highlighting how sequencing the paleogenome from museum specimens can help us to study extinct species.

Keywords: Biological Sciences; Evolutionary Biology; Genomics.

Abstract

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