The narrow-headed vole, collared lemming and common vole were the most abundant small mammal species across the Eurasian Late Pleistocene steppe-tundra environment. Previous ancient DNA studies of the collared lemming and common vole have revealed dynamic population histories shaped by climatic fluctuations. To investigate the extent to which species with similar adaptations share common evolutionary histories, we generated a dataset comprised the mitochondrial genomes of 139 ancient and 6 modern narrow-headed voles from several sites across Europe and northwestern Asia covering approximately the last 100 thousand years (kyr). We inferred Bayesian time-aware phylogenies using 11 radiocarbon-dated samples to calibrate the molecular clock. Divergence of the main mtDNA lineages across the three species occurred during marine isotope stages (MIS) 7 and MIS 5, suggesting a common response of species adapted to open habitat during interglacials. We identified several time-structured mtDNA lineages in European narrow-headed vole, suggesting lineage turnover. The timing of some of these turnovers was synchronous across the three species, allowing us to identify the main drivers of the Late Pleistocene dynamics of steppe- and cold-adapted species.

Biogéosciences UMR 6282 CNRS University of Burgundy Dijon France

Borissiak Paleontological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow Russia

Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution Tarragona Spain

Centre of New Technologies University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland

Department of Archaeology Anthropology and Geography University of Winchester Winchester UK

Department of Chemistry G Ciamician Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna Bologna Italy

Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology and

Department of History and Art History Rovira i Virgili University Tarragona Spain

Department of Human and Environment UMR 7194MNHN CNRS UPVD National Museum of Natural History Paris France

Department of Human Evolution Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig Germany

Department of Palaeontology University of Vienna Vienna Austria

Department of Zoology Charles University Prague Czechia

DRAC SRA Poitou Charentes Ministry of Culture and Communications Poitiers France

Faculty of Archaeology Leiden University Leiden The Netherlands

Faculty of Science and Technology Bournemouth University Poole UK

Institute of Archaeology Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń Toruń Poland

Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology Ural Branch Russian Academy of Sciences Yekaterinburg Russia

Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences Cracow Poland

Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior University of Algavre Faro Portugal

Research Group Prehistory University of Liège Liège Belgium

Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment University of Tübingen Tübingen Germany

Senckenberg Research Station of Quaternary Palaeontology Weimar Germany

Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences Wrocław Poland

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Ancient DNA of narrow-headed vole reveal common features of the Late Pleistocene population dynamics in cold-adapted small mammals

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