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- Title
A phantom extinction? New insights into extinction dynamics of the Don-hare Lepus tanaiticus.
- Authors
PROST, S.; KNAPP, M.; FLEMMIG, J.; HUFTHAMMER, A. K.; KOSINTSEV, P.; STILLER, M.; HOFREITER, M.
- Abstract
The Pleistocene to Holocene transition was accompanied by a worldwide extinction event affecting numerous mammalian species. Several species such as the woolly mammoth and the giant deer survived this extinction wave, only to go extinct a few thousand years later during the Holocene. Another example for such a Holocene extinction is the Don-hare, Lepus tanaiticus, which inhabited the Russian plains during the late glacial. After being slowly replaced by the extant mountain hare ( Lepus timidus), it eventually went extinct during the middle Holocene. Here, we report the phylogenetic relationship of L. tanaiticus and L. timidus based on a 339-basepair (bp) fragment of the mitochondrial D-loop. Phylogenetic tree- and network reconstructions do not support L. tanaiticus and L. timidus being different species. Rather, we suggest that the two taxa represent different morphotypes of a single species and the extinction of ‘ L. tanaiticus’ represents the disappearance of a local morphotype rather than the extinction of a species.
- Subjects
BIOLOGICAL extinction; HOLOCENE paleoclimatology; PLEISTOCENE paleoclimatology; MAMMALS; LEPUS
- Publication
Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2010, Vol 23, Issue 9, p2022
- ISSN
1010-061X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02062.x