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   An international team of researchers has sequenced and analyzed a complete   
   nuclear genome and 14 mitochondrial genomes from the extinct woolly   
   rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and found that its population   
   remained stable and diverse until only a few thousand years before it   
   disappeared from Siberia, when temperatures likely rose too high for the   
   cold-adapted species.   
      
   The woolly rhinoceros was a cold-adapted megaherbivore widely distributed   
   across northern Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene epoch.   
      
   This species first appeared some 350,000 years ago and became extinct   
   approximately 14,000 years ago.   
      
   The woolly rhinoceros fossils are fairly common and have been discovered   
   throughout Europe and Asia. Well-preserved remains have been found frozen   
   in ice and buried in oil-saturated soils.   
      
   In Ukraine, a complete carcass of a female woolly rhinoceros was   
   discovered buried in the mud. The combination of oil and salt prevented   
   the remains from decomposing, allowing the soft tissues to remain intact.   
      
   While humans and climate change have been proposed as potential causes of   
   its extinctions, knowledge is limited on how this ancient creature was   
   impacted by human arrival and climatic fluctuations.   
      
   “It was initially thought that humans appeared in northeastern Siberia   
   14,000-15,000 years ago, around when the woolly rhinoceros went extinct,”   
   said Professor Love Dalén, a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics,   
   a joint venture between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of   
   Natural History.   
      
   “But recently, there have been several discoveries of much older human   
   occupation sites, the most famous of which is around thirty thousand years   
   old.”   
      
   “So, the decline towards extinction of the woolly rhinoceros doesn’t   
   coincide so much with the first appearance of humans in the region.”   
      
   “If anything, we actually see something looking a bit like an increase in   
   population size during this period.”   
      
   To investigate the demographic history of the woolly rhinoceros leading up   
   to its extinction, Professor Dalén and colleagues studied DNA from tissue,   
   bone, and hair samples of 14 individuals.   
      
   “We sequenced a complete nuclear genome to look back in time and estimate   
   population sizes, and we also sequenced fourteen mitochondrial genomes to   
   estimate the female effective population sizes,” said Edana Lord, a Ph.D.   
   student at the Centre for Palaeogenetics.   
      
   By looking at the heterozygosity, or genetic diversity, of these genomes,   
   the researchers were able to estimate the woolly rhino populations for   
   tens of thousands of years before their extinction.   
      
   “We examined changes in population size and estimated inbreeding,” said   
   Dr. Nicolas Dussex, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for   
   Palaeogenetics.   
      
   “We found that after an increase in population size at the start of a cold   
   period some 29,000 years ago, the woolly rhino population size remained   
   constant and that at this time, inbreeding was low.”   
      
   This stability lasted until well after humans began living in Siberia,   
   contrasting the declines that would be expected if the woolly rhinos went   
   extinct due to hunting.   
      
   “That’s the interesting thing. We actually don’t see a decrease in   
   population size after 29,000 years ago,” Lord said.   
      
   “The data we looked at only goes up to 18,500 years ago, which is   
   approximately 4,500 years before their extinction, so it implies that they   
   declined sometime in that gap.”   
      
   The DNA data also revealed genetic mutations that helped the woolly   
   rhinoceros adapt to colder weather.   
      
   One of these mutations, a type of receptor in the skin for sensing warm   
   and cold temperatures, has also been found in woolly mammoths.   
      
   Adaptations like this suggest the woolly rhinoceros, which was   
   particularly suited to the frigid northeast Siberian climate, may have   
   declined due to the heat of a brief warming period, known as the Bølling-   
   Allerød interstadial, that coincided with their extinction towards the end   
   of the last Ice Age.   
      
   “We’re coming away from the idea of humans taking over everything as soon   
   as they come into an environment, and instead elucidating the role of   
   climate in megafaunal extinctions,” Lord said.   
      
   “Although we can’t rule out human involvement, we suggest that the woolly   
   rhinoceros’ extinction was more likely related to climate.”   
      
   The results were published in the journal Current Biology.   
      
   http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/climate-change-woolly-rhinoceros-   
   extinction-08745.html   
      
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