Genome sequence, population history, and pelage genetics of the endangered African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)
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Date
2016
Authors
Campana, M.
Parker, L.
Hawkins, M.
Young, H.
Helgen, K.
Szykman Gunther, M.
Woodroffe, R.
Maldonado, J.
Fleischer, R.
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Journal article
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BMC Genomics, 2016; 17(1):1013-1-1013-10
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Michael G. Campana, Lillian D. Parker, Melissa T.R. Hawkins, Hillary S. Young, Kristofer M. Helgen, Micaela Szykman Gunther, Rosie Woodroffe, Jesús E. Maldonado, and Robert C. Fleischer
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Abstract
Background: The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is an endangered African canid threatened by severe habitat fragmentation, human-wildlife conflict, and infectious disease. A highly specialized carnivore, it is distinguished by its social structure, dental morphology, absence of dewclaws, and colorful pelage. Results: We sequenced the genomes of two individuals from populations representing two distinct ecological histories (Laikipia County, Kenya and KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa). We reconstructed population demographic histories for the two individuals and scanned the genomes for evidence of selection. Conclusions: We show that the African wild dog has undergone at least two effective population size reductions in the last 1,000,000 years. We found evidence of Lycaon individual-specific regions of low diversity, suggestive of inbreeding or population-specific selection. Further research is needed to clarify whether these population reductions and low diversity regions are characteristic of the species as a whole. We documented positive selection on the Lycaon mitochondrial genome. Finally, we identified several candidate genes (ASIP, MITF, MLPH, PMEL) that may play a role in the characteristic Lycaon pelage.
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© The Author(s). 2016 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.