4000-year-old reindeer mitogenomes from the Volga-Kama region reveal continuity among the forest reindeer in northeastern part of European Russia

• Main Authors: Heino, M. T. (Matti T.), Askeyev, I. V. (Igor V.), Shaymuratova (Galimova), D. N. (Dilyara N.), Askeyev, O. V. (Oleg V.), Askeyev, A. O. (Arthur O.), van der Valk, T. (Tom), Pečnerová, P. (Patrícia), Dalén, L. (Love), Aspi, J. (Jouni)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Tatarstan Academy of Sciences 2019
• Subjects: Arctic; Kama; Fennoscandia; Fennoscandian; taiga; Tundra; Северный олень
• Online Access: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi-fe202002104975

Abstract There are three main ecotypes of reindeer in Eurasia: tundra reindeer, boreal forest reindeer and High Arctic reindeer. Of these, especially the forest reindeer has suff ered due to human over hunting and habitat fragmentation. Forest reindeer was still found in the Volga-Kama region at the beginning of the 20th century, but has since disappeared from the region. In order to investigate the genetic relationships of these histori-cal, southernly distributed forest reindeer populations, the authors obtained mitogenome sequences from six individuals from Pestretsy II, an archaeological site located in Tatarstan and dated to around 4000 calibrated years before the present (cal BP). The sequences reported in this study represent the fi rst published ancient reindeer mitogenomes. The authors observed genetic continuity between the historical reindeer from Tatarstan and present day wild populations from the taiga zone of northeastern part of European Russia. Interestingly, four out of the six studied individuals belong to mitochondrial control region haplogroup II, which today is a major haplogroup among the semi-domestic reindeer in Fennoscandia. Even though the haplotypes observed in Pestretsy II site are not closely related to the major haplotypes observed among the Fennoscandian semi-domestic reindeer, the results suggest that this haplogroup may have its origin east of Fennoscandia. It is also interesting to note that the size of the reindeers from the Pestretsy II site was one of the largest observed in the Holocene. Аннотация В Евразии существует три основных экотипа северного оленя: тундровый северный олень, таежный северный олень и высокоарктический северный олень. Из них лесные северные олени особенно пострадали из-за чрезмерной охоты человека и фрагментации среды обитания. Лесной северный олень еще встречался в Волго-Камском регионе в начале XX века, но с тех пор исчез из данного региона. Чтобы исследовать генетические связи этих исторических, южно-распределенных популяций лесных северных оленей, ...