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Perri AR, Mitchell KJ, Mouton A, Álvarez-Carretero S, Hulme-Beaman A, Haile J, Jamieson A, Meachen J, Lin AT, Schubert BW, Ameen C, Antipina EE, Bover P, Brace S, Carmagnini A, Carøe C, Samaniego Castruita JA, Chatters JC, Dobney K, Dos Reis M, Evin A, Gaubert P, Gopalakrishnan S, Gower G, Heiniger H, Helgen KM, Kapp J, Kosintsev PA, Linderholm A, Ozga AT, Presslee S, Salis AT, Saremi NF, Shew C, Skerry K, Taranenko DE, Thompson M, Sablin MV, Kuzmin YV, Collins MJ, Sinding MHS, Gilbert MTP, Stone AC, Shapiro B, Van Valkenburgh B, Wayne RK, Larson G, Cooper A, Frantz LAF. Dire wolves were the last of an ancient New World canid lineage. Nature 2021; 591:87-91. [PMID: 33442059 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03082-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2020] [Accepted: 11/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Dire wolves are considered to be one of the most common and widespread large carnivores in Pleistocene America1, yet relatively little is known about their evolution or extinction. Here, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of dire wolves, we sequenced five genomes from sub-fossil remains dating from 13,000 to more than 50,000 years ago. Our results indicate that although they were similar morphologically to the extant grey wolf, dire wolves were a highly divergent lineage that split from living canids around 5.7 million years ago. In contrast to numerous examples of hybridization across Canidae2,3, there is no evidence for gene flow between dire wolves and either North American grey wolves or coyotes. This suggests that dire wolves evolved in isolation from the Pleistocene ancestors of these species. Our results also support an early New World origin of dire wolves, while the ancestors of grey wolves, coyotes and dholes evolved in Eurasia and colonized North America only relatively recently.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angela R Perri
- Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK.
| | - Kieren J Mitchell
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
| | - Alice Mouton
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | | | - Ardern Hulme-Beaman
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.,School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
| | - James Haile
- The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Alexandra Jamieson
- The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Julie Meachen
- Department of Anatomy, Des Moines University, Des Moines, IA, USA
| | - Audrey T Lin
- The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
| | - Blaine W Schubert
- Center of Excellence in Paleontology & Department of Geosciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA
| | - Carly Ameen
- Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | | | - Pere Bover
- ARAID Foundation, Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Ciencias Ambientales (IUCA) - Aragosaurus Group, Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain
| | - Selina Brace
- Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, UK
| | - Alberto Carmagnini
- School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
| | - Christian Carøe
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | | | - Keith Dobney
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.,Department of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.,Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK.,Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada
| | - Mario Dos Reis
- School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
| | - Allowen Evin
- Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution - Montpellier, CNRS, Université de Montpellier, IRD, EPHE, Montpellier, France
| | - Philippe Gaubert
- Laboratoire Evolution & Diversité Biologique, UPS/CNRS/IRD, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
| | - Shyam Gopalakrishnan
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Graham Gower
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Holly Heiniger
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Kristofer M Helgen
- Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Josh Kapp
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
| | - Pavel A Kosintsev
- Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Urals Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia.,Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia
| | - Anna Linderholm
- The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA
| | - Andrew T Ozga
- Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA
| | | | - Alexander T Salis
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Nedda F Saremi
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
| | - Colin Shew
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Katherine Skerry
- School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Dmitry E Taranenko
- Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
| | - Mary Thompson
- Idaho Museum of Natural History, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID, USA
| | - Mikhail V Sablin
- Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg, Russia
| | - Yaroslav V Kuzmin
- Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia.,Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia
| | - Matthew J Collins
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.,McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Mikkel-Holger S Sinding
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.,Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Nuuk, Greenland
| | - M Thomas P Gilbert
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.,NTNU University Museum, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Anne C Stone
- Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.,Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
| | - Beth Shapiro
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA.,Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
| | - Blaire Van Valkenburgh
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Robert K Wayne
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Greger Larson
- The Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Alan Cooper
- South Australian Museum, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
| | - Laurent A F Frantz
- School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK. .,Palaeogenomics Group, Department of Veterinary Sciences, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
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