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Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)

Accelerating climate change is causing severe habitat fragmentation in the Arctic, threatening the persistence of many cold-adapted species. The Scandinavian arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is highly fragmented, with a once continuous, circumpolar distribution, it struggled to recover from a demographic...

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Autores principales: Cockerill, Christopher A., Hasselgren, Malin, Dussex, Nicolas, Dalén, Love, von Seth, Johanna, Angerbjörn, Anders, Wallén, Johan F., Landa, Arild, Eide, Nina E., Flagstad, Øystein, Ehrich, Dorothee, Sokolov, Aleksandr, Sokolova, Natalya, Norén, Karin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9690288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36421799
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13112124
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author Cockerill, Christopher A.
Hasselgren, Malin
Dussex, Nicolas
Dalén, Love
von Seth, Johanna
Angerbjörn, Anders
Wallén, Johan F.
Landa, Arild
Eide, Nina E.
Flagstad, Øystein
Ehrich, Dorothee
Sokolov, Aleksandr
Sokolova, Natalya
Norén, Karin
author_facet Cockerill, Christopher A.
Hasselgren, Malin
Dussex, Nicolas
Dalén, Love
von Seth, Johanna
Angerbjörn, Anders
Wallén, Johan F.
Landa, Arild
Eide, Nina E.
Flagstad, Øystein
Ehrich, Dorothee
Sokolov, Aleksandr
Sokolova, Natalya
Norén, Karin
author_sort Cockerill, Christopher A.
collection PubMed
description Accelerating climate change is causing severe habitat fragmentation in the Arctic, threatening the persistence of many cold-adapted species. The Scandinavian arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is highly fragmented, with a once continuous, circumpolar distribution, it struggled to recover from a demographic bottleneck in the late 19th century. The future persistence of the entire Scandinavian population is highly dependent on the northernmost Fennoscandian subpopulations (Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula), to provide a link to the viable Siberian population. By analyzing 43 arctic fox genomes, we quantified genomic variation and inbreeding in these populations. Signatures of genome erosion increased from Siberia to northern Sweden indicating a stepping-stone model of connectivity. In northern Fennoscandia, runs of homozygosity (ROH) were on average ~1.47-fold longer than ROH found in Siberia, stretching almost entire scaffolds. Moreover, consistent with recent inbreeding, northern Fennoscandia harbored more homozygous deleterious mutations, whereas Siberia had more in heterozygous state. This study underlines the value of documenting genome erosion following population fragmentation to identify areas requiring conservation priority. With the increasing fragmentation and isolation of Arctic habitats due to global warming, understanding the genomic and demographic consequences is vital for maintaining evolutionary potential and preventing local extinctions.
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spelling pubmed-96902882022-11-25 Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus) Cockerill, Christopher A. Hasselgren, Malin Dussex, Nicolas Dalén, Love von Seth, Johanna Angerbjörn, Anders Wallén, Johan F. Landa, Arild Eide, Nina E. Flagstad, Øystein Ehrich, Dorothee Sokolov, Aleksandr Sokolova, Natalya Norén, Karin Genes (Basel) Article Accelerating climate change is causing severe habitat fragmentation in the Arctic, threatening the persistence of many cold-adapted species. The Scandinavian arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) is highly fragmented, with a once continuous, circumpolar distribution, it struggled to recover from a demographic bottleneck in the late 19th century. The future persistence of the entire Scandinavian population is highly dependent on the northernmost Fennoscandian subpopulations (Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula), to provide a link to the viable Siberian population. By analyzing 43 arctic fox genomes, we quantified genomic variation and inbreeding in these populations. Signatures of genome erosion increased from Siberia to northern Sweden indicating a stepping-stone model of connectivity. In northern Fennoscandia, runs of homozygosity (ROH) were on average ~1.47-fold longer than ROH found in Siberia, stretching almost entire scaffolds. Moreover, consistent with recent inbreeding, northern Fennoscandia harbored more homozygous deleterious mutations, whereas Siberia had more in heterozygous state. This study underlines the value of documenting genome erosion following population fragmentation to identify areas requiring conservation priority. With the increasing fragmentation and isolation of Arctic habitats due to global warming, understanding the genomic and demographic consequences is vital for maintaining evolutionary potential and preventing local extinctions. MDPI 2022-11-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9690288/ /pubmed/36421799 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13112124 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Cockerill, Christopher A.
Hasselgren, Malin
Dussex, Nicolas
Dalén, Love
von Seth, Johanna
Angerbjörn, Anders
Wallén, Johan F.
Landa, Arild
Eide, Nina E.
Flagstad, Øystein
Ehrich, Dorothee
Sokolov, Aleksandr
Sokolova, Natalya
Norén, Karin
Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_full Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_fullStr Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_full_unstemmed Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_short Genomic Consequences of Fragmentation in the Endangered Fennoscandian Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)
title_sort genomic consequences of fragmentation in the endangered fennoscandian arctic fox (vulpes lagopus)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9690288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36421799
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13112124
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