Historical demography and species distribution models shed light on past speciation in primates of northeast India

Abstract

AbstractObjectivesTo ascertain the effect of historical demography and past climate change as the drivers of diversity in northeast India.Materials and methodsWe took the variant called whole genome files of nine species present in the northeast India from Primate genome sequencing consortium work and assessed each species historic effective population size by using Multiple Sequentially Markovian Coalescent (MSMC) tool. We also constructed species distribution models on past (Pliocene and Pleistocene) and present climate with Maxent, by utilizing publicly available distribution data for each species.ResultsWe got the effective population sizes for 10 million years ago at most, though we considered the data only till 3.3 million years. All species showed rise and decline at various time periods. The species distribution models showed disparate distribution at all three time points with a genera-wise pattern emerging.DiscussionWe found that the evolutionary trajectories of all the four genera into consideration,Macaca, Trachypithecus, HoolockandNycticebusare different from each other. Species inMacacalooks to be evolved in northeast as well as come from southeast Asia. Some species ofTrachypithecusseems to radiated in the northeast India. Similarly,Hoolockhas evolved in the region andNycticebusis predicted have arrived from Indochina in the region. Hence, this study provides unique insights to the evolutionary dynamics for primate species in the northeast India.