Recent Insights Into the Evolutionary Genomics of the Critically Endangered Aye-Aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis)

Abstract

Endemic to the island of Madagascar, the enigmatic aye-aye is amongst the most endangered primates on the planet. Due to their nocturnal and arboreal lifestyle and large geographic ranges, much remains unknown about these lemurs. The publication of a recent high-quality reference assembly with gene-level annotations, together with whole-genome population-level sequencing data, has facilitated a number of studies modeling the fundamental evolutionary processes shaping the patterns and levels of genetic variation in aye-ayes. In this review, we survey these recent findings, highlighting new insights into the selective and demographic history of the species, as well as into genome-wide patterns of mutation and recombination as assessed from both pedigree-based and divergence-/polymorphism-based analyses.

Keywords: Daubentonia madagascariensis; Daubentoniidae; aye‐aye; population genetics; primate; strepsirrhine.