Extraordinary incidence of cervical ribs indicates vulnerable condition in Late Pleistocene mammoths

Jelle W F Reumer; Clara M A Ten Broek; Frietson Galis

doi:10.7717/peerj.318

Extraordinary incidence of cervical ribs indicates vulnerable condition in Late Pleistocene mammoths

PeerJ. 2014 Mar 25:2:e318. doi: 10.7717/peerj.318. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Jelle W F Reumer¹, Clara M A Ten Broek², Frietson Galis³

Affiliations

¹ Natural History Museum , Rotterdam , The Netherlands ; Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University , Utrecht , The Netherlands.
² Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Terrestrial Zoology/Geology , Leiden , The Netherlands ; University Antwerp, Evolutionary Ecology Group , Antwerp , Belgium.
³ Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Terrestrial Zoology/Geology , Leiden , The Netherlands.

Abstract

The number of cervical vertebrae in mammals is highly conserved at seven. We have shown that changes of this number are selected against due to a coupling with major congenital abnormalities (pleiotropic effects). Here we show that the incidence of abnormal cervical vertebral numbers in Late Pleistocene mammoths from the North Sea is high (33.3%) and approximately 10 times higher than that of extant elephants (3.6%). Abnormal numbers were due to the presence of large cervical ribs on the seventh vertebra, which we deduced from the presence of rib articulation facets on sixth (posterior side) and seventh (anterior side) cervical vertebrae. The incidence of abnormal cervical vertebral numbers in mammoths appears to be much higher than in other mammalian species, apart from exceptional sloths, manatees and dugongs and indicates a vulnerable condition. We argue that the increased incidence of cervical ribs in mammoths is probably caused by inbreeding and adverse conditions that impact early pregnancies in declining populations close to extinction in the Late Pleistocene.

Keywords: Body plan; Elephas; Extinction; Inbreeding; Loxodonta; Mammoths; Vertebral column.

Grants and funding

FG acknowledges Synthesys travel grants to visit the Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren, the Zoological Museum Copenhagen, and the Natural History Museum of Stockholm (BE-TAF-1649, DK-TAF-2183, DE-TAF-2114, SE-TAF-3009). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.