Mereu Paolo, Pirastru Monica, Morell Miranda Pedro, Atağ Gözde, Başak Vural Kıvılcım, Wilkens Barbara, Rodrigues Soares André Elias, Kaptan Damla, Zedda Marco, Columbano Nicolò, Barbato Mario, Naitana Salvatore, Hadjisterkotis Eleftherios, Somel Mehmet, Özer Füsun, Günther Torsten, Leoni Giovanni Giuseppe
Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Università degli Studi di Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Human Evolution Program, Institute for Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
PLoS One. 2025 May 14;20(5):e0323354. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0323354. eCollection 2025.
Mouflons are flagship species of the Mediterranean islands where they persist. Once thought to be the remnants of a European wild sheep population, archaeology suggests they were introduced by humans to the islands of Cyprus in the Early Neolithic (~10,000 years ago) and later to Corsica and Sardinia. Their status as truly wild animals remains a subject of debate. To investigate the phylogenetic relationship between these island populations and other domestic and wild sheep from the Mediterranean region, we sequenced 50 mitogenomes of mouflons from Sardinia and Corsica, and modern and ancient Sardinian domestic sheep. A total of 68 additional publicly available mitogenomes were included in the comparative analysis and used to reconstruct the phylogeny of sheep and its closest wild relative, the mouflon (Ovis gmelini). Our study analyzed the evolutionary relationships within the C-E-X and haplogroup B clusters, showing that: a) Cyprus mouflons are more related to Anatolian and Iranian mouflons belonging to the wild haplogroup X, which seems to be basal to the domestic C and E haplogroups; b) Corsican and Sardinian mouflon arise from basal lineages associated with the early European expansion of domestic sheep. These results highlight the phylogenetic distinctiveness of the mouflon populations from the Mediterranean islands, suggesting a revision of their systematic classification and an update of the nomenclature for Sardinian and Corsican mouflons from the current status of subspecies of domestic sheep (Ovis aries musimon) to subspecies of their wild relatives (Ovis gmelini musimon) which would facilitate conservation efforts.
摩弗伦羊是地中海岛屿上现存的旗舰物种。曾被认为是欧洲野生绵羊种群的残余，考古学研究表明，它们在新石器时代早期（约10000年前）被人类引入塞浦路斯岛，后来又被引入科西嘉岛和撒丁岛。它们作为真正野生动物的地位仍是一个有争议的话题。为了研究这些岛屿种群与地中海地区其他家养绵羊和野生绵羊之间的系统发育关系，我们对来自撒丁岛和科西嘉岛的50个摩弗伦羊的线粒体基因组，以及现代和古代撒丁岛家养绵羊的线粒体基因组进行了测序。另外68个公开可用的线粒体基因组被纳入比较分析，并用于重建绵羊及其最亲近的野生亲戚摩弗伦羊（盘羊）的系统发育。我们的研究分析了C-E-X和单倍群B聚类中的进化关系，结果表明：a）塞浦路斯摩弗伦羊与属于野生单倍群X的安纳托利亚和伊朗摩弗伦羊关系更为密切，单倍群X似乎是家养C和E单倍群的基础；b）科西嘉和撒丁岛的摩弗伦羊起源于与家养绵羊早期欧洲扩张相关的基础谱系。这些结果突出了地中海岛屿摩弗伦羊种群的系统发育独特性，建议对其系统分类进行修订，并将撒丁岛和科西嘉岛摩弗伦羊的命名从目前的家养绵羊（摩弗伦羊）亚种更新为其野生亲戚（摩弗伦羊）的亚种，这将有助于保护工作。
