Insights into Middle–Late Pleistocene mammal colonisation pathways to Sicily integrating ancient wolf mitogenomes, extant pine marten (cytb) and hedgehog (mtDNA control region) lineages

This work, focused on 4 dataset of Sicilian mammal species (Pleistocene wolves, an historical sample wolf, pine marten and hedgehog), aims to clarify the taxonomic position of Sicilian clades between the other European haplotypes. We obtained a partial mtDNA genome from two Pleistocene wolves and a complete mtDNA genome from an historical wolf sample, al collected from museum specimens, sequencing on NGS Illumina platform. Pine marten (cytb) and Hedgehog (Control region) samples were sequenced using the classic Sanger protocol. We performed a phylogenetic analysis calculating a time-calibrated Bayesian phylogenetic tree and a consensus network based on p-distance. We integrated the phylogenetic analysis with a Principal Component Analysis, computing distances under the Kimura 2-parameter model with Cailliez correction. Pleistocene wolves showed a close relationship with ancient and modern dogs, while the historical sample seems to have its own ancient lineage linked more to wolves than dogs. Modern samples of Pine marten and hedgehog collected from roadkill in the Sicilian territory shows a unique lineage for the island. These findings reflect the glacial refugia dynamics of isolation and colonization during the Middle-Late Pleistocene.