% pubman genre = article
@article{item_3007599,
title = {{Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations}},
author = {Paijmans, Johanna L. A. and Barlow, Axel and F{\"o}rster, Daniel W. and Henneberger, Kirstin and Meyer, Matthias and Nickel, Birgit and Nagel, Doris and Havm{\o}ller, Rasmus Wors{\o}e and Baryshnikov, Gennady F. and Joger, Ulrich and Rosendahl, Wilfried and Hofreiter, Michael},
language = {eng},
issn = {1471-2148},
doi = {10.1186/s12862-018-1268-0},
publisher = {BioMed Central},
year = {2018},
abstract = {{Background: Resolving the historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) is a complex issue, because patterns inferred from fossils and from molecular data lack congruence. Fossil evidence supports an African origin,{\textless}br{\textgreater}and suggests that leopards were already present in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Analysis of DNA sequences{\textless}br{\textgreater}however, suggests a more recent, Middle Pleistocene shared ancestry of Asian and African leopards. These contrasting patterns led researchers to propose a two-stage hypothesis of leopard dispersal out of Africa: an initial Early Pleistocene colonisation of Asia and a subsequent replacement by a second colonisation wave during the Middle Pleistocene. The status of Late Pleistocene European leopards within this scenario is unclear: were these populations remnants of the first dispersal, or do the last surviving European leopards share more recent ancestry with their African counterparts?{\textless}br{\textgreater}Results: In this study, we generate and analyse mitogenome sequences from historical samples that span the entire modern leopard distribution, as well as from Late Pleistocene remains. We find a deep bifurcation between African and Eurasian mitochondrial lineages ({\textasciitilde} 710 Ka), with the European ancient samples as sister to all Asian lineages ({\textasciitilde} 483 Ka). The modern and historical mainland Asian lineages share a relatively recent common ancestor ({\textasciitilde} 122 Ka), and we find one Javan sample nested within these.{\textless}br{\textgreater}Conclusions: The phylogenetic placement of the ancient European leopard as sister group to Asian leopards suggests that these populations originate from the same out-of-Africa dispersal which founded the Asian lineages. The coalescence time found for the mitochondrial lineages aligns well with the earliest undisputed fossils in Eurasia,{\textless}br{\textgreater}and thus encourages a re-evaluation of the identification of the much older putative leopard fossils from the{\textless}br{\textgreater}region. The relatively recent ancestry of all mainland Asian leopard lineages suggests that these populations underwent a severe population bottleneck during the Pleistocene. Finally, although only based on a single sample, the unexpected phylogenetic placement of the Javan leopard could be interpreted as evidence for exchange of{\textless}br{\textgreater}mitochondrial lineages between Java and mainland Asia, calling for further investigation into the evolutionary history of this subspecies.}},
journal = {{BMC Evolutionary Biology}},
volume = {18},
eid = {156},
}