Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1619137114
• Publication Date: 2017-03-28T01:00:53Z
• Authors: Lior Weissbrod; Fiona B. Marshall; François R. Valla; Hamoudi Khalaily; Guy Bar-Oz; Jean-Christophe A...; Jean-Denis Vigne; Thomas Cucchi
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; 0301 basic medicine; 570; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SDV.BID.SPT]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Systematics; [SDV.BA] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology; Population Dynamics; 930; [SDV.BID]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity; 01 natural sciences; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; Anthropology, Physical; Mice; 03 medical and health sciences; Residence Characteristics; [SDV.EE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; [SDV.BID.SPT] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Systematics, Phylogenetics and taxonomy; Animals; 2. Zero hunger; [SHS.ARCHEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SDV.BIBS] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Quantitative Methods [q-bio.QM]; Ecology; [SDV.BA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology; Phylogenetics and taxonomy; 15. Life on land; [SDV.BIBS]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Quantitative Methods [q-bio.QM]; [SDV.EE] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology, environment; Archaeology; [SHS] Humanities and Social Sciences; environment; [SDV.BID] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity

Significance Decreases in hunter-gatherer mobility during the Late Pleistocene altered relationships with animal communities and led to domestication. Little is known, however, about how selection operated in settlements of varying duration. This study of mice in modern African mobile settlements and ancient Levantine sites demonstrates competitive advantages for commensal mice when human mobility is low and niche partitioning with noncommensal wild mice when mobility increases. Changing mice molar shapes in a 200,000-y-long sequence from the Levant reveal that mice first colonized settlements of relatively settled hunter-gatherers 15,000 y ago. The first long-term hunter-gatherer settlements transformed ecological interactions and food webs, allowing commensal house mice to outcompete wild mice and establish durable populations that expanded with human societies.