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SHORT COMMUNICATION: A phantom extinction? New insights into extinction dynamics of the Don‐hare Lepus tanaiticus
Author(s) -
PROST S.,
KNAPP M.,
FLEMMIG J.,
HUFTHAMMER A. K.,
KOSINTSEV P.,
STILLER M.,
HOFREITER M.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of evolutionary biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.289
H-Index - 128
eISSN - 1420-9101
pISSN - 1010-061X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2010.02062.x
Subject(s) - extinction (optical mineralogy) , biology , holocene , pleistocene , phylogenetic tree , local extinction , ecology , extinction event , zoology , evolutionary biology , paleontology , biological dispersal , demography , population , biochemistry , sociology , gene
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.