"African lions probably 2 distinct species"

I do love taxonomic research. All the other recent lion studies have been tending towards not even any subspecies beyond African and Asian, and now this one is talkling about multiple species! Would be interesting to know where that would leave Asian Lions if the two African forms are considered separate species - three species? Seems excessive!
 
I don't have the other studies to hand but the 'lumping' studies were also genetic - but of course could easily be getting different results by looking at different DNA regions. I'd have to check if the other studies also used mtDNA - a relatively recent split is more likely to be apparent there than in nuclear DNA.

Interesting stuff, anyway.
 
Maguari said:
I do love taxonomic research. All the other recent lion studies have been tending towards not even any subspecies beyond African and Asian, and now this one is talkling about multiple species! Would be interesting to know where that would leave Asian Lions if the two African forms are considered separate species - three species?
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So do I.:) Without it I'd still be wondering what the Caspian tiger really looked like, whereas now I think I can see one in quite a lot of UK zoos!:D

I also like those maps that show the purported spread/ distribution of ancestral species explaining the current forms and their ranges. In the case of Lions the map showed a previous 'continuum' between Asian and Barbary Lions, maybe that should now be extended southward to join up with West and Central African populations? Leaving East African Lions completely seperate?

It was previously hypothesised that Barbaries were closer related to Asians, than to other African Lions, but in the light of this latest research, should Asian/Barbary/West and Central African Lions all be considered as stemming from the same parent stock:confused:?
mtDNA tests showed the Moroccan Lions at Rabat possessed haplotypes found in 'Central and other(East?) African Lions' (I think)- well, the Central African connection could be expected if this new research is correct, but not the 'East'.

The problem is, is it? I suppose DNA can't lie.
 
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This is the problem with reading press releases. I went to the actual paper. Granted, all i have access to is the abstract, but the abstract says nothing about there being two SPECIES of lions. What it does say is the lions in west Africa are a genetically distinct linage and probably an offshoot from the Barbary/Asian line and not from the East/South African line. Once more they are only 8,000 to 40,000 years separated. Hardly enough time to warrant a true species. Maybe a subspecies. Maybe.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
This is the problem with reading press releases. I went to the actual paper. Granted, all i have access to is the abstract, but the abstract says nothing about there being two SPECIES of lions. What it does say is the lions in west Africa are a genetically distinct linage and probably an offshoot from the Barbary/Asian line and not from the East/South African line. Once more they are only 8,000 to 40,000 years separated. Hardly enough time to warrant a true species. Maybe a subspecies. Maybe.
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Thanks JB - at work at the mo so can't do too much digging. ;)

That sounds much less contradictory of the recent studies - but still very interesting as it's a suggestion I've not seen come up before. Subsaharan lions have always been very much a unit.
 
There have been several articles/press releases covering this study and this is the only one mentioning the possibility of species-level distinctions out of those that I have read. I linked to it rather than the ScienceDaily article because I thought everybody already knew about the study; I was simply pointing out the possibility of such species-level distinctions.

"Genetically distinct" can mean one of a few different things, and the author of the first press release has obviously taken it to mean "possibly two different species". We should perhaps be a little more conservative than this until somebody has actually read the study and can enlighten us.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
What it does say is the lions in west Africa are a genetically distinct linage and probably an offshoot from the Barbary/Asian line and not from the East/South African line. Once more they are only 8,000 to 40,000 years separated. Hardly enough time to warrant a true species. Maybe a subspecies. Maybe.
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Species/subspecies/race. I never know quite where one starts and another ends. I still find it difficult to visualise orangutans as seperate species, rather than subspecies.

In the case of the Lions I'm wondering how the Atlas/Asian stock could have also colonised West Africa though, with the Sahara desert being a major barrier between the two.
 
When it comes to species/subspecies/race distinctions, I always remember that the Zanzibar leopard is now considered synonymous with its mainland counterpart from whom it originated some c.6,000 years ago. Tasmania's emu and Tasmanian Devil are considered subspecies of the mainland forms (or vice versa), from which they diverged some 9-11,000 yBP. So somewhere between these two periods of time lies the population/subspecies distinction (at least for large animals).

So going by this, I assume that the subspecies distinction is warranted in the case of lions if they diverged a minimum of 9,000 yBP and possibly 40,000 yBP. But of course, how long does a subspecies have to stay isolated for before it becomes a distinct species? I was reading the paper which described the Borneo elephant as a new subspecies. That paper stated a divergence date of c.300,000 years (they based it upon a single gene, and cautioned that the date could be significantly out though...), and it is still considered a subspecies. Yet the Sunda clouded leopard, which diverged from the normal clouded leopard a similar period of time ago, is recognized as a full species....
 
Pertinax said:
In the case of the Lions I'm wondering how the Atlas/Asian stock could have also colonised West Africa though, with the Sahara desert being a major barrier between the two.
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Because the Sahara Desert did not exist before about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. The whole region of north Africa was a vast savanna. Look at some of the rock art in southern Algeria and you can see some of the species that called the area home like rhinos, giraffes, sivatheriums, etc.
 
jbnbsn99 said:
This is the problem with reading press releases. I went to the actual paper. Granted, all i have access to is the abstract, but the abstract says nothing about there being two SPECIES of lions. What it does say is the lions in west Africa are a genetically distinct linage and probably an offshoot from the Barbary/Asian line and not from the East/South African line. Once more they are only 8,000 to 40,000 years separated. Hardly enough time to warrant a true species. Maybe a subspecies. Maybe.
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Ah! This is not my field, but I do have access to tonnes of full-text journal articles - probably one of the few perks of the job.

Here is the link to what I believe is the full paper: Genetic diversity, evolutionary history and implications for conservation of the lion (Panthera leo) in West and Central Africa - Bertola - 2011 - Journal of Biogeography - Wiley Online Library

And here is their abstract:

"Abstract
Aim  In recent decades there has been a marked decline in the numbers of African lions (Panthera leo), especially in West Africa where the species is regionally endangered. Based on the climatological history of western Africa, we hypothesize that West and Central African lions have a unique evolutionary history, which is reflected by their genetic makeup.

Location  Sub-Saharan Africa and India, with special focus on West and Central Africa.

Method  In this study 126 samples, throughout the lion’s complete geographic range, were subjected to phylogenetic analyses. DNA sequences of a mitochondrial region, containing cytochrome b, tRNAPro, tRNAThr and the left part of the control region, were analysed.

Results  Bayesian, maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony analyses consistently showed a distinction between lions from West and Central Africa and lions from southern and East Africa. West and Central African lions are more closely related to Asiatic lions than to the southern and East African lions. This can be explained by a Pleistocene extinction and subsequent recolonization of West Africa from refugia in the Middle East. This is further supported by the fact that the West and Central African clade shows relatively little genetic diversity and is therefore thought to be an evolutionarily young clade.

Main conclusions  The taxonomic division between an African and an Asian subspecies does not fully reflect the overall genetic diversity within lions. In order to conserve genetic diversity within the species, genetically distinct lineages should be prioritized. Understanding the geographic pattern of genetic diversity is key to developing conservation strategies, both for in situ management and for breeding of captive stocks."

And here are their conclusions:

"Conclusions
In this study, 126 lion sequences were analysed using a number of phylogenetic approaches. The consistent pattern that emerged shows a clear distinction between West and Central African lions (including India) on the one hand, and southern and East African lions on the other. This pattern is most likely to be explained by the climatological history of western Africa and current environmental connections and barriers to lion dispersal. The hyperarid conditions during Holocene glacial periods may have led to the regional extinction of the lion in West and Central Africa, followed by subsequent recolonization from refugia in the Middle East. This would explain why West and Central African lions seem to be closely related to Indian lions, and why they show relatively little genetic diversity. This may indicate that this is an evolutionarily young branch, in comparison to the southern and East African lions, which show much more diversity.

Understanding the geographic pattern of genetic variation within species is critical for conservation management, not only for wild populations but also for breeding of captive stocks. Most zoos only distinguish between accepted subspecies, which do not necessarily reflect the overall genetic diversity of the species. Based on our results, existing management strategies should be reconsidered and West and Central African lions should not only be prioritized based on their current endangered situation, but also based on their genetic distinctness, their different level of genetic variation and their unique evolutionary history. We believe that the evidence presented in this study merits further consideration of the distinct taxonomic status of lions in West and Central Africa."

Have fun guys. Hopefully you make more sense of it than I do.
 
If the results are accurate, then West and Central lions should be managed as a separate ETU, at the very least.
 
Yeah, Evolutionary Taxonomic Unit. Same thing. I'm probably using dated terminology.

:p

Hix
 
I wonder if there are any pure West African lions in captivity - in Africa or outside it?

Some on ISIS are listed as such, but I have no idea how certain it is.
 
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