Survival and divergence in a small group: The extraordinary genomic history of the endangered Apennine brown bear stragglers
About 100 km east of Rome, in the central Apennine Mountains, a critically endangered population of ?50 brown bears live in complete
isolation. Mating outside this population is prevented by several 100 km of bear-free territories. We exploited this natural
experiment to better understand the gene and genomic consequences of surviving at extremely small population size. We found
that brown bear populations in Europe lost connectivity since Neolithic times, when farming communities expanded and forest burning