Influence of ancient glacial periods on the Andean fauna: the case of the pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: While numerous studies revealed the major role of environmental changes of the Quaternary on the evolution of biodiversity, research on the influence of that period on current South-American fauna is scarce and have usually focused on lowland regions. In this study, the genetic structure of the pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo), a widely distributed felid, was determined and linked to ancient climate fluctuations on the Andean region. RESULTS: Using both mitochondrial sequences and nuclear microsatellites, we inferred the existence of at least four groups of populations in the central Andes, while other three localities, with little sample sizes (n = 3), presented differences in only one of these markers. The distribution of these groups is correlated to latitude, with a central area characterized by admixture of numerous mitochondrial clades. This suggests colonization from at least three glacial refuges and a contact zone between 20 degrees and 23 degrees S following a glaciation event. The similar coalescence times of the mitochondrial haplotypes indicated that the major clades split approximately one million years ago, likely during the Pre-Pastonian glacial period (0.80 - 1.30 MYA), followed by a demographic expansion in every clade during the Aftonian interglacial period (0.45 - 0.62 MYA). Interestingly, this structure roughly corresponds to the current recognised distribution of morphological subspecies. CONCLUSION: The four groups of populations identified here must be considered different management units, and we propose the three localities showing differences in only mtDNA or ncDNA as provisional management units. The results revealed the influence of ancient climate fluctuations on the evolutionary history of this species. It is expected that the other species of land vertebrates with a smaller or similar mobility have been affected in the same manner by the glacial and interglacial periods in the central Andes.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".