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Fauna and genesis of its diversity has been a very dynamic process during evolution of animal kingdom. Climate fluctuations during the past 2.5 million years have had a major impact on animal populations in the Northern Hemisphere, shaping their distribution and population structure. Glaciations in Pleistocene restricted most of the animal populations to refuge areas on the other side of permafrost. After the last ice-age, many animal species started to expand their range towards northern territories. Investigations of refuge areas and recolonisation patterns of several animal species in European part of Eurasia has already expanded our knowledge of animal migrations in the Holocene, but further studies that include much larger part of Eurasia, its central and eastern part, are clearly required to understand formation of evolutionary lineages of mammals in Eurasia. The aim of this project is to assess the formation of evolutionary lineages of brown bear and moose populations in Eurasia, find additional glacial refuge areas for these large mammals and migration patterns from these areas to their current territories. Most of the material for analysis has been already collected. We aim to analyse biogeographic processes at different level: elucidate roles of maternal and paternal lineages. Phylogeography of the maternal lineage will be investigated by sequencing full control region of mtDNA. For analysis of paternal lineage, a method will be developed to isolate Y chromosome specific microsatellites and isolated markers will be used for further analysis. Moreover, autosomal microsatellite locuses will be analysed to characterise phylogenetic structuring of animal populations. In addition to analysis of contemporary samples, we will increase the chronological precision of investigation by analysing mtDNA sequences also from subfossile bones that are 2000-11000 years old. Preliminary results have shown, that a method developed in our laboratory allows isolation and analysis of old samples with high efficiency. |