From forests to deserts: Sequencing of the giant forest hog completes the genomic history of the African suids
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: ), the largest and most elusive wild pig, is found in a disjunct range across tropical Africa, from Guinea to the Ethiopian highlands. The GFH has three morphologically defined subspecies. Here, we present the first whole-genome data for nine samples from Guinea and Uganda, its two most geographically distant subspecies. We identify the GFH as sister to warthogs among African suids, diverging around 4.6 Mya, with the two GFH populations splitting between 1.7 and 0.5 Mya and following distinct demographic trajectories. The deep evolutionary split is confirmed by species-level genetic differentiation and the lowest heterozygosity level in the Guinean population compared with all the African suids, likely reflecting long-term low effective population size and isolation. Our findings have implications for understanding the habitat-change consequences in African rainforests and reveal a deep evolutionary divergence within the GFH with potential conservation relevance.
Source: iScience
Authors: Marta Maria Ciucani, Sabhrina Gita Aninta, Nuno Filipe Gomes Martins, David A. Duchêne, Xi Wang, Ignacio A. Lazagabaster, Xiaodong Liu, Frederik Filip Stæger, Mikkel Schubert, Thomas Bøggild, Shixu He, Zilong Li, Rafael Reyna, Erik Meijaard, Thomas M. Butynski, Vincent B. Muwanika, Charles Masembe, Sylvain Dufour, Philippe Gaubert, Hans R. Siegismund, Ida Moltke, Anders Albrechtsen, Rasmus Heller
Institutions: University of Copenhagen, University of Liverpool, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Makerere University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Centre de Recherche sur la Biodiversité et l'Environnement, Université de Toulouse
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,240
OpenAlex ID: W7203722432