Macaque evolution and dispersal in insular south-east Asia

Abstract

The evolution of primates is usually approached from the standpoint of adaptation and interspecific competition. However, climatic and eustatic changes associated with periodic glaciations have had a profound influence on their geographical distribution, favouring the intervention of contingency in evolution. This paper deals with the role of chance and competition in the dispersal and stocking of macaques in the islands of south‐east Asia. The genus Macaca is unique among non‐human primates for the range of habitats colonized, from continents to islands. We first review current knowledge about the zoogeography of macaques in Sundaland. We point out the inconsistencies present in the hypotheses thus far proposed to account for the colonization of shallow‐ and deep‐water islands. We then propose a new perspective of macaque dispersal through the Indonesian archipelago, which takes into account sea‐level changes, as well as latitudinal and altitudinal rainforest shifts following climatic cycles during the Quaternary. We envision three steps: (i) dispersal and partial disappearance of the first radiation of macaques; (ii) primary mainland recolonization by pigtailed and longtailed macaques; and (iii) secondary sea‐rafting colonization by longtailed macaques. This model implies that liontailed, Sulawesi and Mentawai macaques stemmed from pre‐glacial remnant populations, whereas pigtailed macaques originated in post‐glacial populations that diverged later on. The model accounts for the distribution of longtailed macaques throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The riverine habits of this species would have favoured its dispersal by sea rafting, which was otherwise extremely rare for other primate species. Stocking would have been successful for longtailed macaques only in islands where no other macaque competitors were already present. © 2002 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 75, 555–576.

The population genomics of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) based on whole-genome sequences

“…The inferred divergence of Indian from Chinese rhesus macaques ∼150,000 to 200,000 yr ago is consistent with reconstructions of macaque evolutionary history based on a smaller nuclear DNA sequence data set (Hernandez et al 2007), mtDNA analyses (Smith and McDonough 2005;Hasan et al 2014), and climate, sea level changes, and paleontology (Abegg and Thierry 2002). Fossils of ancient macaques, along with other forest dwelling mammals, are known from throughout the Zhoukoudian faunal assemblage in northeast China, dating from >500,000 yr ago to less than 200,000 (Li et al 2014).…”

“…The dispersal of modern rhesus macaques into eastern China and westward across Bangladesh into India established the broad geographic range and ecological diversity that now characterizes Macaca mulatta. Our results suggest that the dispersal of rhesus macaques from their origin in east or southeast Asia westward (Abegg and Thierry 2002) probably occurred between 150,000 and 200,000 yr ago (Smith and McDonough 2005;Hernandez et al 2007;Hasan et al 2014). Furthermore, the bottleneck inferred for the Indian-origin animals by the stairway analyses may be the result of this westward dispersal.…”

Hybridization and Stratification of Nuclear Genetic Variation in Macaca mulatta and M. fascicularis

“…The idea of the long-tailed macaque's emergence out of Indonesia, and as Delson (1980) claimed, specifically from the island of Java, is concordant with the occurrence of 10 macaque species within Indonesia (Fooden 1995, Groves 2001, Abegg and Thierry 2002, although most of these species inhabit Sulawesi and belong to the silenus group of macaque species. The gradual loss of genetic diversity might have occurred as new areas on the mainland were colonized by the species.…”

The origins and persistence of Homo floresiensis on Flores: biogeographical and ecological perspectives

“…In terms of primates, seven species of Macaca are present (Abegg and Thierry, 2002), whose ancestor probably arrived from Borneo (Ziegler et al, 2007), in addition to a number of cryptic tarsier species (Shekelle et al, 2010). Other extant large-bodied mammals include the Sulawesi babyrousa (Babyrousa celebensis), the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) (Meijaard et al, 2011) and the anoa (Bubalus depressicornis) (Groves and Leslie, 2011).…”