Thalmann O, Fischer A, Lankester F, Pääbo S, Vigilant L
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Mol Biol Evol. 2007 Jan;24(1):146-58. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msl160. Epub 2006 Oct 25.
Relatively little is known about the evolutionary and demographic histories of gorillas, one of our closest living relatives. In this study, we used samples from both western (Gorilla gorilla) and eastern (Gorilla beringei) gorillas to infer the timing of the split between these geographically disjunct populations and to elaborate the demographic history of gorillas. Here we present DNA sequences from 16 noncoding autosomal loci from 15 western gorillas and 3 eastern gorillas, including 2 noninvasively sampled free-ranging individuals. We find that the genetic diversity of gorillas is similar to that of chimpanzees but almost twice as high as that of bonobos and humans. A significantly positive Fu & Li's D was observed for western gorillas, suggesting a complex demographic history with a constant, long-term population size and ancestral population structure. Among different population-split scenarios, our data suggest a complex history of western and eastern gorillas including an initial population split at around 0.9-1.6 MYA and subsequent, primarily male-mediated gene flow until approximately 80,000-200,000 years ago. Furthermore, simulations revealed that more gene flow took place from eastern to western gorilla populations than vice versa.
对于大猩猩（我们现存的近亲之一）的进化和种群历史，人们了解得相对较少。在这项研究中，我们使用了西部大猩猩（Gorilla gorilla）和东部大猩猩（Gorilla beringei）的样本，来推断这些地理上隔离的种群之间的分化时间，并阐述大猩猩的种群历史。在此，我们展示了来自15只西部大猩猩和3只东部大猩猩的16个非编码常染色体位点的DNA序列，其中包括2只通过非侵入性采样获得的野生个体。我们发现，大猩猩的遗传多样性与黑猩猩相似，但几乎是倭黑猩猩和人类的两倍。西部大猩猩的Fu & Li's D值显著为正，这表明其种群历史复杂，种群规模长期恒定且存在祖先种群结构。在不同的种群分化情景中，我们的数据表明西部和东部大猩猩的历史复杂，包括大约在0.9 - 1.6百万年前的首次种群分化，以及随后主要由雄性介导的基因流动，一直持续到大约8万 - 20万年前。此外，模拟结果显示，从东部到大猩猩种群的基因流动比从西部到东部的更多。
