Recent increase in species-wide diversity after interspecies introgression in the highly endangered Iberian lynx

• Published in: Nature Ecology & Evolution
• Main Authors: Lucena Pérez, María, Paijmans, Johanna L. A., Nocete Calvo, Francisco, Detry, Cleia, Hofreiter, Michael, Barlow, Axel, Godoy, José A., Nadal, Jordi, Dalén, Love
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Research 2024
• Subjects: Lince; Prehistoria; Genética; Ecología; ADN; Hibridación; 24 Ciencias de la Vida; 55 Historia; 25 Ciencias de la Tierra y del Espacio; Lynx; Lynx lynx lynx
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10272/22988; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02267-7

Genetic diversity is lost in small and isolated populations, affecting many globally declining species. Interspecific admixture events can increase genetic variation in the recipient species’ gene pool, but empirical examples of species-wide restoration of genetic diversity by admixture are lacking. Here we present multi-fold coverage genomic data from three ancient Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) approximately 2,000–4,000 years old and show a continuous or recurrent process of interspecies admixture with the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) that increased modern Iberian lynx genetic diversity above that occurring millennia ago despite its recent demographic decline. Our results add to the accumulating evidence for natural admixture and introgression among closely related species and show that this can result in an increase of species-wide genetic diversity in highly genetically eroded species. The strict avoidance of interspecific sources in current genetic restoration measures needs to be carefully reconsidered, particularly in cases where no conspecific source population exists. This research was funded by the Spanish Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica through projects CGL2013-47755-P and CGL2017-84641-P to J.A.G and is an extension of a project on ancient lynx genetics granted to Miguel Delibes de Castro by the Fundación BBVA. M.L.-P. was supported by a PhD contract from Programa Internacional de Becas "La Caixa-Severo Ochoa". J.N. received financial support through projects HAR2014- 55131 from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and SGR2014-108 from the Generalitat de Catalunya. We acknowledge support from Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the National Genomics Infrastructure funded by the Swedish Research Council and Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. We also acknowledge the support of the Supercomputing Wales project, ...