Meeting Abstract
At the end of the Pleistocene (~13,000 years ago) a mass extinction began that has resulted in a significant loss of Earth’s biodiversity. Remarkably, many Pleistocene species survived on islands until they were colonized by humans. In the Caribbean, large animals (e.g. giant tortoises and ground sloths) along with many birds and small mammals survived until human colonization during the Holocene, between 5,000 – 1,000 years ago. Here we focus on Bahamian hutia, Geocapromys ingrahami, the only native terrestrial mammal in the Bahamas. This large rodent is thought to have been managed as a food resource by Amerindians soon after they colonized the islands. Previous fossil and archaeological studies indicate Bahamian hutias were once widespread across the Bahamas and were able to inhabit a diversity of island settings. Today, extant hutia populations are vulnerable and are limited to three small cays. We extracted ancient DNA from fossils of extirpated populations that yielded nearly complete mitochondrial genomes from G. ingrahami from four banks of the Bahamas. We found that an extinct northern subspecies of G. ingrahami was genetically distinct from other populations highlighting the loss of biodiversity in Bahamas. We also use these data to place the Bahamian hutia in a wider phylogenetic context with other non-Bahamian hutia species. Our results augment the emerging understanding of human-caused biodiversity declines on Caribbean Islands.
