Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome erosion prior to extinction

Marianne Dehasque¹, Hernán E Morales², David Díez-Del-Molino³, Patrícia Pečnerová⁴, J Camilo Chacón-Duque⁵, Foteini Kanellidou⁶, Héloïse Muller⁷, Valerii Plotnikov⁸, Albert Protopopov⁸, Alexei Tikhonov⁹, Pavel Nikolskiy¹⁰, Gleb K Danilov¹¹, Maddalena Giannì¹², Laura van der Sluis¹², Tom Higham¹², Peter D Heintzman¹³, Nikolay Oskolkov¹⁴, M Thomas P Gilbert¹⁵, Anders Götherström¹⁶, Tom van der Valk¹⁷, Sergey Vartanyan¹⁸, Love Dalén¹⁹

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: marianne.dehasque@gmail.com.
² Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Section for Computational and RNA Biology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁵ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Lilla Frescativägen 7, 11418 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁷ Master de Biologie, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I, Universite de Lyon, 69007 Lyon, France.
⁸ Academy of Sciences of Sakha Republic, Lenin Avenue 33, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia.
⁹ Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
¹⁰ Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
¹¹ Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Kunstkamera, Russian Academy of Sciences, 3 University Embankment, Box 199034, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
¹² Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
¹³ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁴ Department of Biology, National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden, Science for Life Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
¹⁵ Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; University Museum, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway.
¹⁶ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Lilla Frescativägen 7, 11418 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁷ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; SciLifeLab, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁸ North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute N.A.N.A. Shilo, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia.
¹⁹ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: love.dalen@zoologi.su.se.

PMID: 38942016
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.033

Free article

Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome erosion prior to extinction

Marianne Dehasque et al. Cell. 2024.

Free article

. 2024 Jul 11;187(14):3531-3540.e13.

doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.033. Epub 2024 Jun 27.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: marianne.dehasque@gmail.com.
² Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Section for Computational and RNA Biology, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁵ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Lilla Frescativägen 7, 11418 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
⁷ Master de Biologie, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon, Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I, Universite de Lyon, 69007 Lyon, France.
⁸ Academy of Sciences of Sakha Republic, Lenin Avenue 33, Yakutsk, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Russia.
⁹ Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
¹⁰ Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
¹¹ Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Kunstkamera, Russian Academy of Sciences, 3 University Embankment, Box 199034, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
¹² Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences (HEAS), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
¹³ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Geological Sciences, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁴ Department of Biology, National Bioinformatics Infrastructure Sweden, Science for Life Laboratory, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
¹⁵ Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; University Museum, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway.
¹⁶ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, Lilla Frescativägen 7, 11418 Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁷ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; SciLifeLab, Stockholm, Sweden.
¹⁸ North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute N.A.N.A. Shilo, Far East Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Magadan, Russia.
¹⁹ Centre for Palaeogenetics, Svante Arrhenius väg 20C, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Bioinformatics and Genetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 10405 Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Zoology, Stockholm University, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: love.dalen@zoologi.su.se.

PMID: 38942016
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.033

Abstract

A number of species have recently recovered from near-extinction. Although these species have avoided the immediate extinction threat, their long-term viability remains precarious due to the potential genetic consequences of population declines, which are poorly understood on a timescale beyond a few generations. Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) became isolated on Wrangel Island around 10,000 years ago and persisted for over 200 generations before becoming extinct around 4,000 years ago. To study the evolutionary processes leading up to the mammoths' extinction, we analyzed 21 Siberian woolly mammoth genomes. Our results show that the population recovered quickly from a severe bottleneck and remained demographically stable during the ensuing six millennia. We find that mildly deleterious mutations gradually accumulated, whereas highly deleterious mutations were purged, suggesting ongoing inbreeding depression that lasted for hundreds of generations. The time-lag between demographic and genetic recovery has wide-ranging implications for conservation management of recently bottlenecked populations.

Keywords: Mammuthus primigenius; Wrangel Island; ancient DNA; bottleneck; climate; extinction; inbreeding; mutation load; paleogenomics; woolly mammoth.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests.

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Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome erosion prior to extinction

Affiliations

Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome erosion prior to extinction

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Medical