Lions and brown bears colonized North America in multiple synchronous waves of dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge

Alexander T Salis; Sarah C E Bray; Michael S Y Lee; Holly Heiniger; Ross Barnett; James A Burns; Vladimir Doronichev; Daryl Fedje; Liubov Golovanova; C Richard Harington; Bryan Hockett; Pavel Kosintsev; Xulong Lai; Quentin Mackie; Sergei Vasiliev; Jacobo Weinstock; Nobuyuki Yamaguchi; Julie A Meachen; Alan Cooper; Kieren J Mitchell

doi:10.1111/mec.16267

Lions and brown bears colonized North America in multiple synchronous waves of dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge

Mol Ecol. 2022 Dec;31(24):6407-6421. doi: 10.1111/mec.16267. Epub 2021 Nov 24.

Authors

Alexander T Salis^{1

2}, Sarah C E Bray^{1

3}, Michael S Y Lee^{4

5}, Holly Heiniger¹, Ross Barnett⁶, James A Burns⁷, Vladimir Doronichev⁸, Daryl Fedje⁹, Liubov Golovanova⁸, C Richard Harington¹⁰, Bryan Hockett¹¹, Pavel Kosintsev^{12

13}, Xulong Lai¹⁴, Quentin Mackie⁹, Sergei Vasiliev¹⁵, Jacobo Weinstock¹⁶, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi¹⁷, Julie A Meachen¹⁸, Alan Cooper⁵, Kieren J Mitchell^{1

19}

Affiliations

¹ Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
² Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA.
³ Registry of Senior Australians (ROSA), South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI), Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
⁴ College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Bedford Park, South Australia, Australia.
⁵ South Australian Museum, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
⁶ Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁷ Curator Emeritus, Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
⁸ ANO Laboratory of Prehistory, St Petersburg, Russia.
⁹ Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C, Canada.
¹⁰ Curator Emeritus and Research Associate, Research Division (Paleobiology), Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada.
¹¹ US Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Nevada State Office, Reno, Nevada, USA.
¹² Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia.
¹³ Department of History, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia.
¹⁴ State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
¹⁵ Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia.
¹⁶ Faculty of Humanities (Archaeology), University of Southampton, UK.
¹⁷ Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, University Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Malaysia.
¹⁸ Anatomy Department, Des Moines University, Des Moines, Iowa, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Zoology, Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

PMID: 34748674
DOI: 10.1111/mec.16267

Abstract

The Bering Land Bridge connecting North America and Eurasia was periodically exposed and inundated by oscillating sea levels during the Pleistocene glacial cycles. This land connection allowed the intermittent dispersal of animals, including humans, between Western Beringia (far northeast Asia) and Eastern Beringia (northwest North America), changing the faunal community composition of both continents. The Pleistocene glacial cycles also had profound impacts on temperature, precipitation and vegetation, impacting faunal community structure and demography. While these palaeoenvironmental impacts have been studied in many large herbivores from Beringia (e.g., bison, mammoths, horses), the Pleistocene population dynamics of the diverse guild of carnivorans present in the region are less well understood, due to their lower abundances. In this study, we analyse mitochondrial genome data from ancient brown bears (Ursus arctos; n = 103) and lions (Panthera spp.; n = 39), two megafaunal carnivorans that dispersed into North America during the Pleistocene. Our results reveal striking synchronicity in the population dynamics of Beringian lions and brown bears, with multiple waves of dispersal across the Bering Land Bridge coinciding with glacial periods of low sea levels, as well as synchronous local extinctions in Eastern Beringia during Marine Isotope Stage 3. The evolutionary histories of these two taxa underline the crucial biogeographical role of the Bering Land Bridge in the distribution, turnover and maintenance of megafaunal populations in North America.

Keywords: Beringia; ancient DNA; brown bears; lions; phylogeography.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Animals
DNA, Mitochondrial / genetics
Horses / genetics
Humans
Lions*
North America
Phylogeny
Ursidae* / genetics

Substances

DNA, Mitochondrial