Rare crested rat subfossils unveil Afro–Eurasian ecological corridors synchronous with early human dispersals
Ignacio A. Lazagabaster, Valentina Rovelli, Pierre‐Henri Fabre, Roi Porat, Micka Ullman, Uri Davidovich, Tal Lavi, Amir Ganor, Eitan Klein, Keren Weiss-Sarusi, Perach Nuriel, Meirav Meiri, Nimrod Marom
Abstract
subspecies nova, which diverged from the modern eastern African populations in the late Middle Pleistocene ∼226,000 to 165,000 y ago. The reported paleomitogenome is the oldest so far in the Levant, opening the door for future paleoDNA analyses in the region. Species distribution modeling points to the presence of continuous habitat corridors connecting eastern Africa with the Levant during the Last Interglacial ∼129,000 to 116,000 y ago, providing further evidence of the northern ingression of African biomes into Eurasia and reinforcing previous suggestions of the critical role of climate change in Late Pleistocene intercontinental biogeography. Furthermore, our study complements other paleoenvironmental proxies with local-instead of interregional-paleoenvironmental data, opening an unprecedented window into the Dead Sea rift paleolandscape.