论文标题：Large-scale mitogenomic analysis of the phylogeography of the Late Pleistocene cave bear

期刊：Scientific Reports

作者：Joscha Gretzinger,Martyna Molak,Ella Reiter,Saskia Pfrengle,Christian Urban,Judith Neukamm,Michel Blant,Nicholas J. Conard,Christophe Cupillard,Vesna Dimitrijevi?,Dorothée G. Drucker,Emilia Hofman-Kamińska,Rafa? Kowalczyk,Maciej T. Krajcarz,Magdalena Krajcarz,Susanne C. Münzel,Marco Peresani,Matteo Romandini,Isaac Rufí,Joaquim Soler,Gabriele Terlato,Johannes Krause,Hervé Bocherens,Verena J. Schuenemann

发表时间：2019/08/15

数字识别码：10.1038/s41598-019-47073-z

微信链接： https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/3hlEbCWs-Q5veINxUQNq0Q

根据《科学报告》发表的一项研究Large-scale mitogenomic analysis of the phylogeography of the Late Pleistocene cave bear，人类可能和欧洲洞熊在末次冰期发生灭绝存在重大关系。研究认为洞熊种群从4万年前左右开始急剧减少，这个时点早于气候变冷时期，而与解剖学意义上的现代人类在欧洲扩散的时间重合。

瑞士苏黎世大学的Verena Schuenemann、德国图宾根大学的Hervé Bocherens及同事利用从瑞士、波兰、法国、西班牙、德国、意大利和塞尔维亚的14个遗址上收集到的骨样本，重构了59个洞熊的线粒体基因组，并将其与64个之前发布的线粒体基因组进行比较，以鉴定不同的洞熊种群生活在何处，以及它们在晚更新世如何进行迁徙。

图1：分析样本的地理分布。图源：Gretzinger等

作者鉴定出了5个主要的线粒体DNA谱系——均源于约45.1万年前的一个共同祖先，并在欧洲扩散开来，这表明洞熊的分布比之前设想的更加复杂。作者估计洞熊种群一直相对稳定，直到约4万年前发生变化，包括两个冷期和多起变冷事件。由于末次冰期的寒冷气候开始较晚（约3万年前），研究认为包括人类捕猎在内的其他因素可能在这个过程中产生了重要影响。

寒冷气候以及之后的植物来源食物减少可能导致整个洞熊种群分散成不同的亚种群，这些亚种群生活在气候较为温和且植物丰富多样的小型栖息地。人类可能通过打断这些亚种群之间的联系，而在洞熊的灭绝中发挥了决定性影响。

摘要：The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is one of the Late Pleistocene megafauna species that faced extinction at the end of the last ice age. Although it is represented by one of the largest fossil records in Europe and has been subject to several interdisciplinary studies including palaeogenetic research, its fate remains highly controversial. Here, we used a combination of hybridisation capture and next generation sequencing to reconstruct 59 new complete cave bear mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) from 14 sites in Western, Central and Eastern Europe. In a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis, we compared them to 64 published cave bear mtDNA sequences to reconstruct the population dynamics and phylogeography during the Late Pleistocene. We found five major mitochondrial DNA lineages resulting in a noticeably more complex biogeography of the European lineages during the last 50,000 years than previously assumed. Furthermore, our calculated effective female population sizes suggest a drastic cave bear population decline starting around 40,000 years ago at the onset of the Aurignacian, coinciding with the spread of anatomically modern humans in Europe. Thus, our study supports a potential significant human role in the general extinction and local extirpation of the European cave bear and illuminates the fate of this megafauna species.

（来源：科学网）