Tracking the origins of Yakutian horses and the genetic basis for their fast adaptation to subarctic environments

Librado, Pablo et al.
Yakutia is among the coldest regions in the Northern Hemisphere, showing ∼40% of its territory above the Arctic Circle. Native horses are particularly adapted to this environment, with body sizes and thick winter coats minimizing heat loss. We sequenced complete genomes of two ancient and nine present-day Yakutian horses to elucidate their evolutionary origins. We find that the contemporary population descends from domestic livestock, likely brought by early horse-riders who settled in the region a few centuries ago. The metabolic, anatomical, and physiological adaptations of these horses therefore emerged on very short evolutionary time scales. We show the relative importance of regulatory changes in the adaptive process and identify genes independently selected in cold-adapted human populations and woolly mammoths.
This work was supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences (Grant 4002-00152B); the Danish National Research Foundation (Grant DNRF94); a Marie-Curie Career Integration grant (Grant FP7 CIG-293845); Initiative d'Excellence Chaires d'attractivité, Université de Toulouse (OURASI); and the International Research Group Program (Grant IRG14-08), Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University. P.L. was supported by a Villum Fonden Blokstipendier grant (primary investigator: L.O.); H.J. by a Marie-Curie Initial Training Network grant [EUROTAST (Exploring the History, Archeology, and New Genetics of the Transatlantic Slave Trade); Grant FP7 ITN-290344]; C.G. and L.E. by Marie-Curie Intra-European fellowships (FP7-IEF-328024 and FP7 IEF-302617); M. Schubert by a Lundbeck Foundation grant (Grant R52-A5062); M.A.Y. by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research fellowship; M.F. by a Human Frontier Science Program fellowship (LT000320/2014); A.A. by a Villum Fonden Blokstipendier grant; M. Schubert by an NIH grant (Grant R01-GM40282); and J.K. by the Academy of Finland (Grant 286040). Research work on the ancient Yakut population was supported by the French Archaeological Mission in Oriental Siberia (Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, France), the North-Eastern Federal University (Yakutsk, Sakha Republic), and the Human Adaptation Program of the French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor [HUMAD MAFSO (Missions Archéologiques Françaises en Sibérie Orientale) 1038].