Ancient DNA of narrow-headed vole reveal common features of the Late Pleistocene population dynamics in cold-adapted small mammals.

The narrow-headed vole, collared lemming and common vole were the most abundant small mammal species across the Eurasian Late Pleistocene steppe-tundra environment. Previous ancient DNA studies of the collared lemming and common vole have revealed dynamic population histories shaped by climatic fluctuations. To investigate the extent to which species with similar adaptations share common evolutionary histories, we generated a dataset comprised the mitochondrial genomes of 139 ancient and 6 modern narrow-headed voles from several sites across Europe and northwestern Asia covering approximately the last 100 thousand years (kyr).

Highly divergent lineage of narrow-headed vole from the Late Pleistocene Europe.

During the Late Pleistocene, narrow-headed voles (Lasiopodomys gregalis) inhabited Eurasia's vast territories, frequently becoming the dominant small mammal species among steppe-tundra communities. We investigated the relationship between this species' European and Asiatic populations by sequencing the mtDNA genomes of two extant specimens from Russia and 10 individuals from five Central European sites, dated to the post-LGM period. Phylogenetic analyses based on a large portion of mtDNA genomes highly supported the positioning of L.