Mitochondrial DNA Variation of the Striped Hyena (Hyaena hyaena) in Algeria and Further Insights into the Species’ Evolutionary History

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Background: The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) occurs in a wide range from north and east Africa, through southwest Asia to India, but its distribution is increasingly patchy and many of its populations are in decline due to intense human pressure. Its genetic diversity and structure, phylogeography, and evolutionary history, remain poorly understood. Methods: In this study, we investigated mitochondrial DNA variation in Algerian striped hyenas. Moreover, with the aim of contributing to our understanding of the evolutionary history of the species, we also examined samples from other geographic regions and compared our results with those of the only previous study in which individuals from across the range of the species were analyzed. In particular, we performed a wide range of analyses of demographic history and estimation of the age of the extant mitochondrial DNA variation. Results and Conclusions: The Algerian population sample was monomorphic. Overall, the global patterns of genetic diversity and the results of some demographic history analyses support a scenario of population growth in the species, estimated to have occurred in the Late Pleistocene, but many of the analyses did not detect a significant signal of growth, most likely a result of the limited power provided by a small number of segregating sites. The estimates, from three different methods, for the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of the mitochondrial DNA variation hovered around 400 ka, coinciding with one of the longest and warmest interglacials of the last 800,000 years, with environmental conditions similar to the Holocene.

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