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Leopard complex spotting is inherited by the incompletely dominant locus, LP, which also causes congenital stationary night blindness in homozygous horses. We investigated an associated single nucleotide polymorphism in the TRPM1 gene in 96 archaeological bones from 31 localities from Late Pleistocene (approx. 17 000 YBP) to medieval times. The first genetic evidence of LP spotting in Europe dates back to the Pleistocene. We tested for temporal changes in the LP associated allele frequency and estimated coefficients of selection by means of approximate Bayesian computation analyses. Our results show that at least some of the observed frequency changes are congruent with shifts in artificial selection pressure for the leopard complex spotting phenotype. In early domestic horses from Kirklareli-Kanligecit (Turkey) dating to 2700-2200 BC, a remarkably high number of leopard spotted horses (six of 10 individuals) was detected including one adult homozygote. However, LP seems to have largely disappeared during the late Bronze Age, suggesting selection against this phenotype in early domestic horses. During the Iron Age, LP reappeared, probably by reintroduction into the domestic gene pool from wild animals. This picture of alternating selective regimes might explain how genetic diversity was maintained in domestic animals despite selection for specific traits at different times.

After the domestication of goats around 10,000 years before the present (BP), humans transported goats far beyond the range of their wild ancestor, the bezoar goat. This brought domestic goats into contact with many wild goat species such as ibex and markhor, enabling introgression between domestic and wild goats. To investigate this, while shedding light on the taxonomic status of wild and domestic goats, we analysed genome‐wide SNP data of 613 specimens from 14 taxonomic units, including Capra hircus, C. pyrenaica, C. ibex (from Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Slovenia), C. aegagrus aegagrus, C. a. cretica, C. h. dorcas, C. caucasica caucasica, C. c. severtzovi, C. c. cylindricornis, C. falconeri, C. sibirica sibirica, C. s. alaiana and C. nubiana, as well as Oreamnos americanus (mountain goat) as an outgroup. To trace gene flow between domestic and wild goats, we integrated genotype data of local goat breeds from the Alps as well as from countries such as Spain, Greece, Türkiye, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, Russia (Caucasus and Altai) and Pakistan. Our phylogenetic analyses displayed a clear separation between bezoar‐type and ibex‐type clades with wild goats from the Greek islands of Crete and Youra clustered within domestic goats, confirming their feral origin. Our analyses also revealed gene flow between the lineages of Caucasian tur and domestic goats that most likely occurred before or during early domestication. Within the clade of domestic goats, analyses inferred gene flow between African and Iberian goats. The detected events of introgression were consistent with previous reports and offered interesting insights into the historical relationships among domestic and wild goats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present distribution of many species is a result of climatic changes during the Pleistocene and human activity. The impact of climate has been accompanied by restrictions of populations into refugia during glacial periods, and subsequent expansions during more favourable conditions, whereas human influence has been associated with hunting practices and translocations. One mammalian species that has been subject to such transformations is the red deer, Cervus elaphus, but the exact nature of these changes has been difficult to determine using only modern DNA. In this study, we obtained new cytochrome b sequences from subfossil remains of deer found in the Crimean Peninsula. A comparison of these sequences with the available recent and ancient sequences allowed to us to reconstruct phylogeographic relationships between Cervus lineages and to determine their potential migration routes at both local and Eurasian scales. Our analyses showed that the Crimean Peninsula was not a glacial refugium for red deer, but rather that red deer colonized Crimea in three independent waves from both Western and Eastern red deer populations. The immigrations were related to local extinctions and replacements of native populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is predicted to cause substantial habitat rearrangements, with the most severe effects expected to occur in high-latitude biomes. However, one major uncertainty is whether species will be able to shift their ranges to keep pace with climate-driven environmental changes. Many recent studies on mammals have shown that past range contractions have been associated with local extinctions rather than survival by habitat tracking. Here, we have used an interdisciplinary approach that combines ancient DNA techniques, coalescent simulations and species distribution modelling, to investigate how two common cold-adapted bird species, willow and rock ptarmigan ( Lagopus lagopus and Lagopus muta), respond to long-term climate warming. Contrary to previous findings in mammals, we demonstrate a genetic continuity in Europe over the last 20 millennia. Results from back-casted species distribution models suggest that this continuity may have been facilitated by uninterrupted habitat availability and potentially also the greater dispersal ability of birds. However, our predictions show that in the near future, some isolated regions will have little suitable habitat left, implying a future decrease in local populations at a scale unprecedented since the last glacial maximum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defensive traits exhibited by plants vary widely across populations. Heritable phenotypic differentiation is likely to be produced by genetic drift and spatially restricted gene flow between populations. However, spatially variable selection exerted by herbivores may also give rise to differences among populations. To explore to what extent these factors promote the among-population differentiation of plant resistance of 13 populations of Datura stramonium, we compared the degree of phenotypic differentiation (P ST) of leaf resistance traits (trichome density, atropine and scopolamine concentration) against neutral genetic differentiation (F ST) at microsatellite loci. Results showed that phenotypic differentiation in defensive traits among-population is not consistent with divergence promoted by genetic drift and restricted gene flow alone. Phenotypic differentiation in scopolamine concentration was significantly higher than F ST across the range of trait heritability values. In contrast, genetic differentiation in trichome density was different from F ST only when heritability was very low. On the other hand, differentiation in atropine concentration differed from the neutral expectation when heritability was less than or equal to 0.3. In addition, we did not find a significant correlation between pair-wise neutral genetic distances and distances of phenotypic resistance traits. Our findings reinforce previous evidence that divergent natural selection exerted by herbivores has promoted the among-population phenotypic differentiation of defensive traits in D. stramonium.