Abstract
The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla, MP) has been extensively exploited and is now on the brink of extinction, but its population structure, evolutionary history, and adaptive potential are unclear. Here, we analyzed 94 genomes from three subspecies of the Chinese pangolin and identified three distinct genetic clusters (MPA, MPB, and MPC), with MPB further divided into MPB1 and MPB2 subpopulations. The divergence of these populations was driven by past climate change. For MPB2 and MPC, recent human activities have caused dramatic population decline and small population size as well as increased inbreeding, but not decrease in genomic variation and increase in genetic load probably due to strong gene flow; therefore, it is crucial to strengthen in situ habitat management for these two populations. By contrast, although human activities have a milder impact on MPA, it is at high risk of extinction due to long-term contraction and isolation, and genetic rescue is urgently needed. MPB1 exhibited a relatively healthy population status and can potentially serve as a source population. Overall, our findings provide novel insights into the conservation of the Chinese pangolin and biogeography of the mammals of eastern Asia.
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Data availability
The raw whole genome resequencing reads have been deposited in the CNGB Sequence Archive of China National GeneBank DataBase (CNGBdb) (accession number: CNP0001723).
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Major Program of the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province of China (20233ACB209001), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2022A1515111016), Science and Technology Department of Guangdong Province (2021QN02H103), Natural Resources Affairs Management-Ecological Forestry Construction Special Project of Forestry Administration of Guangdong Province (SLYJ2023B4002, SLYJ2023B4003, SLYJ2023B4005). We express sincere thanks to the Department of Wildlife Conservation of Forestry Administration of Guangdong Province for their support during the project implementation. We are also grateful to ** Huang & Fuwen Wei
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The author(s) declare that they have no conflict of interest. F.Wei. conceived and supervised the project. S.Wei., H.Fan., W.Zhou., G.Huang., Y.Hua., S.Wu., X.Wei. and Y.Chen. collected the samples. X.Tan. carried out the DNA extraction and library construction. S.Wei. performed the bioinformatics analysis. S.Wei. wrote the manuscript. F.Wei., H.Fan., W.Zhou., S.Wei. revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to interpreting the data and approved the final manuscript.
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Wei, S., Fan, H., Zhou, W. et al. Conservation genomics of the critically endangered Chinese pangolin. Sci. China Life Sci. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2540-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2540-y