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Bonobos are much more genetically heterogeneous than previously thought
16 October 2024
Bonobos are our closest living relatives, together with chimpanzees. They are endangered, with only 20,000-50,000 alive in the wild.
An international team lead by Aida Andrés at UGI, GEE, and just published in Current Biology, used exomes, full genomes and mitochondrial DNA to establish the presence of at least three genetically differentiated populations of predicted Central, Western and Far-Western geographic origin. The Central and the two Western populations are inferred to have diverged ~145,000 years ago and are as differentiated as the two most closely subspecies of chimpanzees. The smallest population, Far-Western, has genetic signs of strong isolation and inbreeding, and an estimated long-term effective population size of only ~3,000 individuals, which is among the smallest across the great apes. This is a surprising level of population differentiation and isolation for a species that lives exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and suggests that bonobos are likely even more vulnerable than previously thought. It also demonstrates how genomics can inform on natural species of species that, like bonobos, cannot be sampled for DNA in the wild.
Deep Genetic Substructure within Bonobos. Han S*, de Filippo C*, Parra G, Meneu JR, Laurent R, Frandsen P, Hvilsom C, Gronau I, Marques-Bonet T, Kuhlwilm M, Andrés AM. Current Biology 2024, 34:1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.09.043
Photo credit: Martin Surbeck Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project