Studies of the evolutionary relationships among gorilla populations using autosomal and mitochondrial sequences suggest that male-mediated gene flow may have been important in the past, but data on the Y-chromosomal relationships among the gorilla subspecies are limited. Here, we genotyped blood and noninvasively collected fecal samples from 12 captives and 257 wild male gorillas of known origin representing all four subspecies (Gorilla gorilla gorilla, G. g. diehli, G. beringei beringei, and G. b. graueri) at 10 Y-linked microsatellite loci resulting in 102 unique Y-haplotypes for 224 individuals. We found that western lowland gorilla (G. g. gorilla) haplotypes were consistently more diverse than any other subspecies for all measures of diversity and comprised several genetically distinct groups. However, these did not correspond to geographical proximity and some closely related haplotypes were found several hundred kilometers apart. Similarly, our broad sampling of eastern gorillas revealed that mountain (G. b. beringei) and Grauer's (G. b. graueri) gorilla Y-chromosomal haplotypes did not form distinct clusters. These observations suggest structure in the ancestral population with subsequent mixing of differentiated haplotypes by male dispersal for western lowland gorillas, and postisolation migration or incomplete lineage sorting due to short divergence times for eastern gorillas.

中文翻译：

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大猩猩的复杂 Y 染色体历史

使用常染色体和线粒体序列对大猩猩种群之间进化关系的研究表明，雄性介导的基因流动在过去可能很重要，但关于大猩猩亚种之间 Y 染色体关系的数据是有限的。在这里，我们在 10 岁时对 12 只圈养动物和 257 只已知来源的野生雄性大猩猩（代表所有四个亚种（ Gorilla gorilla gorilla、G. g. diehli、G. beringei beringei和G. b. graueri））的血液进行基因分型和无创收集粪便样本Y 连锁微卫星基因座为 224 个人产生了 102 个独特的 Y 单倍型。我们发现西部低地大猩猩（G. g. gorilla) 单倍型在所有多样性测量中始终比任何其他亚种更加多样化，并且包含几个遗传上不同的群体。然而，这些并不对应于地理上的邻近性，并且在相距数百公里的地方发现了一些密切相关的单倍型。同样，我们对东部大猩猩的广泛抽样表明，山地 ( G. b. beringei ) 和格劳尔 ( G. b. graueri ) 大猩猩 Y 染色体单倍型没有形成不同的簇。这些观察结果表明，祖先种群的结构随后混合了西部低地大猩猩的雄性分散分化的单倍型，以及由于东部大猩猩的短分化时间而导致的隔离后迁移或不完整的谱系分类。