title: Genetic differentiation of the house mouse around the Mediterranean basin: matrilineal footprints of early and late colonization.
abstract: The molecular signatures of the recent expansion of the western house mouse, Mus musculus domesticus, around the Mediterranean basin are investigated through the study of mitochondrial D-loop polymorphism on a 1313 individual dataset. When reducing the complexity of the matrilineal network to a series of haplogroups (HGs), our main results indicate that: (i) several HGs are recognized which seem to have almost simultaneously diverged from each other, confirming a recent expansion for the whole subspecies; (ii) some HGs are geographically delimited while others are widespread, indicative of multiple introductions or secondary exchanges; (iii) mice from the western and the eastern coasts of Africa harbour largely different sets of HGs; and (iv) HGs from the two shores of the Mediterranean are more similar in the west than in the east. This pattern is in keeping with the two-step westward expansion proposed by zooarchaeological data, an early one coincident with the Neolithic progression and limited to the eastern Mediterranean and a later one, particularly evident in the western Mediterranean, related to the generalization of maritime trade during the first millennium BC and onwards. The dispersal of mice along with humans, which continues until today, has for instance left complex footprints on the long ago colonized Cyprus or more simple ones on the much more recently populated Canary Islands.
authors.affiliation: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Université Montpellier 2, CNRS UMR5554, Montpellier, France. bonhomme@univ-montp2.fr
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bonhomme
authors.forename: Annie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Orth
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cucchi
authors.forename: Hassan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rajabi-Maham
authors.forename: Josette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Catalan
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boursot
authors.forename: Jean-Christophe
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Auffray
authors.forename: Janice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Britton-Davidian
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006239:Haplotypes; D019083:Mediterranean Region; D051379:Mice / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial