Fig 1.
Geographic origin of ancient sheep samples analysed in this study.
Samples (n = 134) come from Estonia (n = 115), Latvia (n = 7), Poland (n = 3), Russia (n = 7), and Greece (n = 2). The location of Kihnu Island in the Gulf of Riga for which the native sheep breed is named, is circled; the samples of Kihnu sheep (n = 44) were collected from the mainland population in south-western Estonia. Site marks on map can indicate several samples from one site; colourless marks indicate sites without any successful samples (for details see S1 Table).
Fig 2.
Note the different colours of the coarse wool (white, grey, black), slender un-woolly legs, and horns on both males (in front, on left) and females (behind, on right). Both males and females can also be polled or scarred (the light grey ram in front has scarred horns). Photo: Eve Rannamäe (April 2016).
Fig 3.
The median-joining network of 523 bp mtDNA D-loop haplotypes depicting the relationships between Estonian, Latvian, Russian, Polish, Greek, and Finnish ancient and modern sheep.
The samples in the network are: Estonian (n = 88), Latvian (n = 5), Russian (n = 6), Polish (n = 2), and Greek (n = 1) ancient, and Estonian modern Kihnu sheep (n = 44) of our study; and Finnish ancient (n = 26) and modern (n = 32) samples from [10]. The numbers of the haplotypes are according to S6 Table. The size of the given node is proportional to the number of samples represented in a haplotype, with the smallest node representing a single individual. Branch length is proportional to the mutational distance; only mutational distances greater than 1 are indicated. For an elaborated time-period specific network see S1 Fig.
Fig 4.
Three-dimensional network of Estonian ancient and modern Kihnu native sheep from four time periods.
A three-dimensional statistical parsimony network was calculated using TempNet based on 559 bp mitochondrial D-loop haplotypes of Estonian sheep (total n = 86, h = 45) dating to the Bronze/Iron Age (blue), Middle Ages (red), and Early Modern / Modern Period (green), as well as Kihnu sheep (n = 44, h = 8; yellow). The size of the given node is proportional to the number of samples represented in a haplotype, with the smallest node representing a single individual; number of samples greater than one is indicated in the parentheses. Branch length is not proportional to the mutational distance; mutational distances greater than 1 are indicated with black dots. Colourless nodes denote haplotypes absent within the time period.
Fig 5.
Three-dimensional network of Estonian ancient sheep from three micro-regions through three time periods.
A three-dimensional statistical parsimony network was calculated using TempNet based on 559 bp mitochondrial D-loop haplotypes of Estonian sheep from three micro-regions: (a) Viljandi-Karksi, (b) Tartu-Lohkva and (c) Saaremaa Island dating to the Bronze/Iron Age (blue), Middle Ages (red), and Early Modern / Modern Period (green). The size of the given node is proportional to the number of samples represented in a haplotype, with the smallest node representing a single individual; number of samples greater than one is indicated in the parentheses. Branch length is not proportional to the mutational distance; mutational distances greater than 1 are indicated with black dots. Colourless nodes denote haplotypes absent within the time period.
Fig 6.
Scatterplot diagram for nucleotide (π) and haplotype (Hd) diversities of the Estonian ancient and modern Kihnu native sheep by time period.
Calculations are based on 559 bp mtDNA D-loop sequences from four temporal cohorts of Bronze/Iron Age (n = 28), Middle Ages (n = 39), Early Modern / Modern Period (n = 19) and Kihnu sheep (n = 44). Error bars indicate standard deviation (Table 1).
Table 1.
Statistics for four temporal cohorts of Estonian ancient and modern Kihnu native sheep by time period.
Table 2.
Genetic differentiation estimates between four temporal cohorts of Estonian ancient and modern Kihnu native sheep.