Evolution and history of bears

Standing brown bear. Evolution and history of bears.

Question 1. Gene flow!. Diagram Description automatically generated.

Question 2. - Y chromosome passed from father to son. Can only trace back the paternal line Mitochondrial DNA - passes from mother to child both female and male!.

Question 3. Some, not as much as the paper written by (Kutschera et al., 2014) whose research was more extensive in some aspects..

Question 4. Diagram Description automatically generated.

Question 5. A picture containing chart Description automatically generated.

Question 6. Yes, I believe more research and data would be required to resolve bears into monophyletic lineages..

References Bidon, T., Janke, A., Fain, S. R., Eiken, H. G., Hagen, S. B., Saarma, U., … Hailer, F. (2014). Brown and Polar Bear Y Chromosomes Reveal Extensive Male-Biased Gene Flow within Brother Lineages. Molecular Biology and Evolution , 31 (6), 1353–1363. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu109 Kutschera, V. E., Bidon, T., Hailer, F., Rodi, J. L., Fain, S. R., & Janke, A. (2014). Bears in a Forest of Gene Trees: Phylogenetic Inference Is Complicated by Incomplete Lineage Sorting and Gene Flow. Molecular Biology and Evolution , 31 (8), 2004–2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu186.