Paleogenomics and habitat modeling reveal temperate Eurasian origins of woolly rhinoceroses

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Abstract
The woolly rhinoceros was a prominent Ice Age megafaunal species, and there is limited knowledge regarding its origin and responses to past glacial cycles. We sequenced 29 mitochondrial and 14 nuclear genomes from Pleistocene specimens across Eurasia and modeled the species’ habitats over the past 500,000 years. Our results suggest that its maternal genetic diversity mainly evolved in temperate Eurasia around 460 thousand to 420 thousand years ago during a prolonged glacial-interglacial transition. We found that a ~170-thousand-year-old East Asian individual was ancestral to all later populations, indicating East Asia as one possible origin of Late Pleistocene ancestry. We also identified the Altai region as a major climatic refugium. These findings highlight the crucial role of temperate Eurasia in the evolution of woolly rhinoceroses and the diversification of cold-adapted megafauna.
Funding Information
  • European Research Council (101054984)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (42488201)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2574201)
  • Vetenskapsrådet (2021-00625)
  • Russian Science Foundation (24-18-00069)
  • Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2023YFF0905700)
  • Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R028-Y3)
  • Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
  • Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R028-D1)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (32570732)

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