Insights into bear evolution from a Pleistocene polar bear genome

Abstract

Interspecific hybridization is a widespread phenomenon, but measuring its extent, directionality, and adaptive importance remains challenging. Ancient genomes, however, can help illuminate the history of modern organisms. Here, we present a genome retrieved from a 130,000- to 115,000-y-old polar bear and perform genome analyses of modern polar and brown bears throughout their geographic ranges. We find that the principal direction of ancient allele sharing was from brown bear into polar bear, although gene flow between them has likely been bidirectional. This partially inverts the current paradigm of unidirectional gene flow from polar into brown bear, and it suggests that polar bears were recipients of external genetic variation prior to their extensive population decline. Keywords: bear evolution, climate change, comparative genomics, hybridization, Ursus