title: Correlating Bayesian date estimates with climatic events and domestication using a bovine case study.
abstract: The tribe Bovini contains a number of commercially and culturally important species, such as cattle. Understanding their evolutionary time scale is important for distinguishing between post-glacial and domestication-associated population expansions, but estimates of bovine divergence times have been hindered by a lack of reliable calibration points. We present a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of 481 mitochondrial D-loop sequences, including 228 radiocarbon-dated ancient DNA sequences, using a multi-demographic coalescent model. By employing the radiocarbon dates as internal calibrations, we co-estimate the bovine phylogeny and divergence times in a relaxed-clock framework. The analysis yields evidence for significant population expansions in both taurine and zebu cattle, European aurochs and yak clades. The divergence age estimates support domestication-associated expansion times (less than 12 kyr) for the major haplogroups of cattle. We compare the molecular and palaeontological estimates for the Bison-Bos divergence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. simon.ho@anu.edu.au
authors.forename: Simon Y W
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: Greger
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.forename: Ceiridwen J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: Tim H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Heupink
authors.forename: Kay E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Lakin
authors.forename: Peter W H
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Holland
authors.forename: Beth
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Shapiro
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D002417:Cattle / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002980:Climate; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006239:Haplotypes; D010802:Phylogeny; D011157:Population Dynamics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA