Our objectives were to refine the phylogeographic assessment puma creeper within South America and to investigate the demographic history of pumas using a coalescent approach. Our results extend previous phylogeographic findings, reassessing the delimitation of historical population units in South America and demonstrating that this species experienced a considerable demographic expansion in the Holocene, ca. 8,000 years ago. Our analyses indicate that this expansion occurred in South America.
Prior to the hypothesized re-colonization of North America, which was therefore inferred to be even more recent. The estimated demographic history supports the interpretation that pumas suffered a severe demographic decline in the Late Pleistocene throughout their distribution, followed by population expansion rihanna fenty puma and re-colonization of the range, initiating from South America.The puma ( Puma concolor Linnaeus, 1771) is a large felid that ranges throughout the Americas.
2000 ; Trinca et al. , 2012 ). In a previous study rihanna puma shoes focusing on pumas ( Culver et al. , 2000 ), three mtDNA segments were employed ( ND5 , 16S and ATP8 ). Of these, ND5 showed the highest polymorphic content in this species, based on a segment spanning 318 bp. A new primer set for this gene was designed specifically for carnivores ( Trigo et al. , 2008 ), amplifying a longer fragment ( ca. 750 bp) and exhibiting successful amplification puma by rihanna creeper across several families .
So as to allow refined inferences of population structure, maternal gene flow and demographic history. In addition to expanding the geographic coverage of South American regions to refine inferences on patterns of matrilineal subdivision, we have performed novel analyses on puma demographic history, which revealed consistent evidence of a recent population expansion in South America, prior to re-colonization of North America.
The availability of ND5 sequences for the extinct felid Miracinonyx trumani ( Barnett et al. , 2005 ) was an additional asset of this segment, allowing the inclusion of this fossil taxon in some analyses.Sequence electropherograms were visually inspected and edited using Chromas Lite 2.01 or FinchTV 1.4.0. Sequences fenty puma creepers were aligned with the CLUSTALW algorithm ( Higgings et al. , 1996 ) implemented in MEGA 4 ( Tamura et al. , 2007 ), followed by manual verification and editing.
Sequence electropherograms were visually inspected and edited using Chromas Lite 2.01 or FinchTV 1.4.0. Sequences were aligned with the CLUSTALW algorithm ( Higgings et al. , 1996 ) implemented in MEGA 4 ( Tamura et al. , 2007 )To investigate the evolutionary relationships among puma mtDNA lineages, haplotype networks were built using the median-joining approach ( Bandelt et al. , 1999 ), as implemented in the software Network 4.5.1.6.