RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Genomes of the extinct Sicilian wolf reveal a complex history of isolation and admixture with ancient dogs JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2022.01.21.477289 DO 10.1101/2022.01.21.477289 A1 Marta Maria Ciucani A1 Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal A1 Germán Hernández-Alonso A1 Alberto Carmagnini A1 Sabhrina Gita Aninta A1 Camilla Hjorth Scharff-Olsen A1 Liam Thomas Lanigan A1 Ilaria Fracasso A1 Cecilie G. Clausen A1 Jouni Aspi A1 Ilpo Kojola A1 Laima Baltrūnaitė A1 Linas Balčiauskas A1 Jane Moore A1 Mikael Åkesson A1 Urmas Saarma A1 Maris Hindrikson A1 Pavel Hulva A1 Barbora Černá Bolfíková A1 Carsten Nowak A1 Raquel Godinho A1 Steve Smith A1 Ladislav Paule A1 Sabina Nowak A1 Robert W. Mysłajek A1 Sabrina Lo Brutto A1 Paolo Ciucci A1 Luigi Boitani A1 Cristiano Vernesi A1 Hans K. Stenøien A1 Oliver Smith A1 Laurent Frantz A1 Lorenzo Rossi A1 Francesco Maria Angelici A1 Elisabetta Cilli A1 Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding A1 M. Thomas P. Gilbert A1 Shyam Gopalakrishnan YR 2022 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/21/2022.01.21.477289.abstract AB The Sicilian wolf represented the only population of wolves living on a Mediterranean island until the first half of the twentieth century (1930s-1960s) 1–7. Previous studies hypothesised that they remained isolated from mainland wolves from the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 8,9, until human persecutions led them to extinction 1–7.There are only seven known Sicilian wolf specimens from the 19th and 20th century preserved in museums in Italy and recent morphometric analyses assigned them to the new subspecies Canis lupus cristaldii 10. To better understand the origins of the Sicilian wolf, and its relationship to other wolf populations, we sequenced four whole genomes (3.8×-11.6×) and five mitogenomes. We investigated the relationship between Sicilian wolves and other modern breeds to identify potential admixture. Furthermore, considering that the last land-bridge between Sicily and Italy disappeared after the LGM 11, around 17 kya, we explored the possibility that the Sicilian wolf retained ancestry from ancient wolf and dog lineages. Additionally, we explored whether the long-term isolation might have affected the genomic diversity, inbreeding levels and genetic load of the Sicilian wolf.Our findings show that the Sicilian wolves shared most ancestry with the modern Italian wolf population but are better modelled as admixed with European dog breeds, and shared traces of Eneolithic and Bronze age European dogs. We also find signatures of severe inbreeding and low genomic diversity at population and individual levels due to long-term isolation and drift, suggesting also low effective population size.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.