Mitochondrial Phylogeography of Wild Boars, Sus scrofa, from Asia Minor: Endemic Lineages, Natural Immigration, Historical Anthropogenic Translocations, and Possible Introgression of Domestic Pigs

Abstract

Wild boars from the Middle East, particularly from northern Mesopotamia, formed the original basis of pig domestication at the end of the late Pleistocene. Later, in archaic times, during the classical Greek and Roman periods and the time of the Christian crusaders, wild boars or pigs of European origin were imported and may have interbred with local wild boars, with possible effects on phenotypes and genetic variants in wild boars in Anatolia. We studied the spatial distribution of maternally inherited (mitochondrial) DNA lineages of wild boars from Türkiye to determine whether only natural lineages are present or also lineages indicating historical introductions of pigs or wild boars specifically from Europe. We found native lineages and ones with wider distribution in the Middle East, but also (modern) pig lineages, suggesting prehistoric and/or historical introductions by humans. Our results also showed that the Bosphorus/Sea of Marmara/Dardanelles waterway between northwestern Anatolia and the southeastern Balkans currently represents an effective barrier to natural gene flow in wild boars, at least for females. Apparently, no relevant (maternal) gene flow occurred in the past, when a natural land bridge connected Anatolia with Southeast Europe. The Anatolian lineages are evolutionarily closely linked to other lineages from the Middle East, without a significant evolutionary gap.