High-quality carnivoran genomes from roadkill samples enable comparative species delineation in aardwolf and bat-eared fox
Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
Allio, Rémi
Tilak, Marie-Ka
Scornavacca, Celine
Avenant, Nico L
Kitchener, Andrew C
Corre, Erwan
Nabholz, Benoit
Delsuc, Frédéric
Date published
February 18, 2021
Abstract
In a context of ongoing biodiversity erosion, obtaining genomic resources from wildlife is essential for conservation. The thousands of yearly mammalian roadkill provide a useful source material for genomic surveys. To illustrate the potential of this underexploited resource, we used roadkill samples to study the genomic diversity of the bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) and the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus), both having subspecies with similar disjunct distributions in Eastern and Southern Africa. First, we obtained reference genomes with high contiguity and gene completeness by combining Nanopore long reads and Illumina short reads. Then, we showed that the two subspecies of aardwolf might warrant species status (P. cristatus and P. septentrionalis) by comparing their genome-wide genetic differentiation to pairs of well-defined species across Carnivora with a new Genetic Differentiation index (GDI) based on only a few resequenced individuals. Finally, we obtained a genome-scale Carnivora phylogeny including the new aardwolf species.
Journal title
eLife
Volume
10
Article number
e63167
Publisher
eLife Sciences
Place of publication
Cambridge
eISSN
2050-084X
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright
Additional information
Full text available via the official URL