Search

Little is known about the spatiotemporal dynamics of gray wolves in the Pleistocene across low-latitude regions of Eurasia. In Japan, a small-bodied endemic subspecies of Japanese wolves existed and went extinct in the early 1900s. The fossil record indicates that a giant wolf, which reached 70 cm in body height, inhabited Japan during the Pleistocene, but its evolutionary relationship, if any, with the Japanese wolf remains uncertain. Here, to reveal the genetic origin of the Japanese wolf, we analyzed ancient DNA from remains (recovered in Japan) of one Pleistocene wolf that lived 35,000 years ago and one Holocene wolf from 5,000 years ago. The analysis of the mitochondrial DNA revealed that the Pleistocene wolf was not part of the Japanese wolf clade but rather an earlier-diverging lineage. The analysis of the nuclear DNA of the Holocene Japanese wolf revealed that it was an admixture of the Japanese Pleistocene wolf and continental wolf lineages. These findings suggest that the Japanese wolf originated via waves of colonization of multiple Pleistocene wolf populations at 57–35 and 37–14 ka, respectively, followed by interpopulation hybridization. [Display omitted] • Ancient DNA of 35,000- and 5,000-year-old wolf fossils found in Japan are analyzed • The Pleistocene giant wolf was one of the early-diverging Pleistocene wolf lineages • An admixed genome of the Japanese wolf suggests its unique origin via hybridization • Repeated wolf expansions caused a complex colonization history in Japanese islands Segawa et al. report ancient DNA from fossils of a giant Pleistocene wolf that lived 35,000 years ago and a Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax) that lived 5,000 years ago. This small-bodied extinct subspecies was an admixture of the Pleistocene wolf in Japan and continental wolf lineages. Repeated migration of ancient wolves resulted in a complex colonization history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early phase of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a number of research institutes have been sequencing and sharing high-quality severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomes to trace the route of infection in Japan. To provide insight into the spread of COVID-19, we developed a web platform named SARS-CoV-2 HaploGraph to visualize the emergence timing and geographical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 haplotypes. Using data from the GISAID EpiCoV database as of June 4, 2022, we created a haplotype naming system by determining the ancestral haplotype for each epidemic wave and showed prefecture- or region-specific haplotypes in each of four waves in Japan. The SARS-CoV-2 HaploGraph allows for interactive tracking of virus evolution and of geographical prevalence of haplotypes, and aids in developing effective public health control strategies during the global pandemic. The code and the data used for this study are publicly available at: https://github.com/ktym/covid19/.