Two species of Southeast Asian cats in the genus Catopuma with diverging histories: an island endemic forest specialist and a widespread habitat generalist

Abstract

Background. The bay cat Catopuma badia is endemic to Borneo, whereas its sister species the Asian golden cat Catopuma temminckii is distributed from the Himalayas and southern China through Indochina, Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. Based on morphological data, up to five subspecies of the Asian golden cat have been recognized, but a taxonomic assessment, including molecular data and morphological characters, is still lacking. Results. We combined molecular data (whole mitochondrial genomes), morphological data (pelage) and species distribution projections (up to the Late Pleistocene) to infer how environmental changes may have influenced the distribution of these sister species over the past 120 000 years. The molecular analysis was based on sequenced mitogenomes of 3 bay cats and 40 Asian golden cats derived mainly from archival samples. Our molecular data suggested a time of split between the two species approximately 3.16 Ma and revealed very low nucleotide diversity within the Asian golden cat population, which supports recent expansion of the population. Discussion. The low nucleotide diversity suggested a population bottleneck in the Asian golden cat, possibly caused by the eruption of the Toba volcano in Northern Sumatra (approx. 74 kya), followed by a continuous population expansion in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene. Species distribution projections, the reconstruction of the demographic history, a genetic isolation-by-distance pattern and a gradual variation of pelage pattern support the hypothesis of a post-Toba population expansion of the Asian golden cat from south China/Indochina to Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. Our findings reject the current classification of five subspecies for the Asian golden cat, but instead support either a monotypic species or one comprising two subspecies: (i) the Sunda golden cat, distributed south of the Isthmus of Kra: C. t. temminckii and (ii) Indochinese, Indian, Himalayan and Chinese golden cats, occurring north of the Isthmus: C. t. moormensis.

Genetic analysis of endangered hog deer (Axis porcinus) reveals two distinct lineages from the Indian subcontinent

“…This divergence estimate is supported by previous molecular studies and found that the genus Axis separated from the Cervus clade during the Late Pliocene 23 , 30 . During the Late Pliocene, numerous species split due to the various climatic and geographical changes that acted as a driver of speciation in Southeast Asia, e.g., Muntiacus 31 ; the Asian golden cat and the bay cat 32 ; C. perrieri and C. cusanus 33 ; and Macaca species 34 . The Bayesian skyline plot analysis strongly indicates that the hog deer population has been demographically stable over the last 8000–40,000 years and also provides evidence of a slight reduction in the effective population size over the last ~800–5000 years BP (Fig.…”

Environmental drivers of megafauna and hominin extinction in Southeast Asia

“…Disappearance of the corridor and expansion of the modern rainforest was proposed to have led to extinction or range reduction of many of its former travellers 4 . Conversely, it is also associated with population expansion of rainforest species such as the Bornean orangutan and the Asian golden cat 12,13 . Given the emerging cosmopolitan nature of Pleistocene Southeast Asia, testing this hypothesis will make a major contribution to global understandings of how hominin taxa had different ecological tolerances or capacities 18 and the role of climate change in driving megafaunal extinctions 19 .…”

An expanded mammal mitogenome dataset from Southeast Asia

“…and C.R. using overlapping PCR products using long-range PCR ( Additional file 1c ) followed by library construction and MiSeq sequencing, or Sanger sequencing as described in Patel, Förster, and Kitchener (2016) [ 6 ] and Liedigk et al. (2015), Roos et al.…”