TY - JOUR

T1 - Diversity and Paleodemography of the Addax (Addax nasomaculatus), a Saharan Antelope on the Verge of Extinction

AU - Hempel, Elisabeth

AU - Westbury, Michael V.

AU - Grau, José H.

AU - Trinks, Alexandra

AU - Paijmans, Johanna L. A.

AU - Kliver, Sergei

AU - Barlow, Axel

AU - Mayer, Frieder

AU - Müller, Johannes

AU - Chen, Lei

AU - Koepfli, Klaus-Peter

AU - Hofreiter, Michael

AU - Bibi, Faysal

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Since the 19th century, the addax (Addax nasomaculatus) has lost approximately 99% of its former range. Along with its close relatives, the blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus) and the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), the addax may be the third large African mammal species to go extinct in the wild in recent times. Despite this, the evolutionary history of this critically endangered species remains virtually unknown. To gain insight into the population history of the addax, we used hybridization capture to generate ten complete mitochondrial genomes from historical samples and assembled a nuclear genome. We found that both mitochondrial and nuclear diversity are low compared to other African bovids. Analysis of mitochondrial genomes revealed a most recent common ancestor ~32 kya (95% CI 11–58 kya) and weak phylogeographic structure, indicating that the addax likely existed as a highly mobile, panmictic population across its Sahelo–Saharan range in the past. PSMC analysis revealed a continuous decline in effective population size since ~2 Ma, with short intermediate increases at ~500 and ~44 kya. Our results suggest that the addax went through a major bottleneck in the Late Pleistocene, remaining at low population size prior to the human disturbances of the last few centuries.

AB - Since the 19th century, the addax (Addax nasomaculatus) has lost approximately 99% of its former range. Along with its close relatives, the blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus) and the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), the addax may be the third large African mammal species to go extinct in the wild in recent times. Despite this, the evolutionary history of this critically endangered species remains virtually unknown. To gain insight into the population history of the addax, we used hybridization capture to generate ten complete mitochondrial genomes from historical samples and assembled a nuclear genome. We found that both mitochondrial and nuclear diversity are low compared to other African bovids. Analysis of mitochondrial genomes revealed a most recent common ancestor ~32 kya (95% CI 11–58 kya) and weak phylogeographic structure, indicating that the addax likely existed as a highly mobile, panmictic population across its Sahelo–Saharan range in the past. PSMC analysis revealed a continuous decline in effective population size since ~2 Ma, with short intermediate increases at ~500 and ~44 kya. Our results suggest that the addax went through a major bottleneck in the Late Pleistocene, remaining at low population size prior to the human disturbances of the last few centuries.

KW - Addax nasomaculatus

KW - Antelope

KW - Archival DNA

KW - Bovid

KW - Conservation

KW - Critically endangered

KW - Genome assembly

KW - Museum collections

KW - PSMC

U2 - 10.3390/genes12081236

DO - 10.3390/genes12081236

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34440410

AN - SCOPUS:85113143103

VL - 12

JO - Genes

JF - Genes

SN - 2073-4425

IS - 8

M1 - 1236

ER -