Centro de Ciencias de la Complejidad, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, 04510, Mexico.
Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, 10315, Berlin, Germany.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Dec;1(12):1816-1819. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0358-5. Epub 2017 Oct 30.
Wild horses unexpectedly survived terminal Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions until eventual European extirpation in the twentieth century. This survival is tied to either their occurrence in cryptic open habitats or their adaptation to forests. Our niche modelling inferred an increasing presence of horses in post-glacial forests, and our analysis of ancient DNA suggested significant selection for black phenotypes as indicating adaptation to forests.
野马出人意料地在更新世末期巨型动物灭绝后幸存下来，直到 20 世纪最终被欧洲人消灭。这种幸存要么与它们出现在隐蔽的开阔栖息地有关，要么与它们对森林的适应有关。我们的生态位模型推断，马在冰川期后森林中的存在有所增加，而我们对古代 DNA 的分析表明，黑色表型的选择显著，表明它们适应了森林。
