Westbury Michael V, Petersen Bent, Garde Eva, Heide-Jørgensen Mads Peter, Lorenzen Eline D
Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark; Centre of Excellence for Omics-Driven Computational Biodiscovery (COMBio), Faculty of Applied Sciences, AIMST University, Kedah, Malaysia.
iScience. 2019 May 31;15:592-599. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.03.023. Epub 2019 May 1.
The narwhal (Monodon monoceros) is a highly specialized endemic Arctic cetacean, restricted to the Arctic seas bordering the North Atlantic. Low levels of genetic diversity have been observed across several narwhal populations using mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites. Despite this, the global abundance of narwhals was recently estimated at ∼170,000 individuals. However, the species is still considered vulnerable to changing climates due to its high specialization and restricted Arctic distribution. We assembled and annotated a genome from a narwhal from West Greenland. We find relatively low diversity at the genomic scale and show that this did not arise by recent inbreeding, but rather has been stable over an extended evolutionary timescale. We also find that the current large global abundance most likely reflects a recent rapid expansion from a much smaller founding population.
独角鲸（Monodon monoceros）是一种高度特化的北极特有鲸类，仅分布于北大西洋周边的北极海域。利用线粒体DNA和微卫星对多个独角鲸种群进行研究时，发现其遗传多样性水平较低。尽管如此，最近估计全球独角鲸的数量约为17万头。然而，由于其高度特化和局限于北极的分布，该物种仍被认为易受气候变化的影响。我们组装并注释了一头西格陵兰独角鲸的基因组。我们发现该基因组规模的多样性相对较低，并表明这并非近期近亲繁殖所致，而是在漫长的进化时间尺度上一直保持稳定。我们还发现，目前全球庞大的数量很可能反映了其近期从一个小得多的奠基种群迅速扩张的结果。
