User:Punetor i Rregullt5/sandbox/Northeast African lion

Lions are divided into two subspecies, which are further divided into genetic clades which overlap in certain parts of Africa to form mixed populations. Panthera leo leo inhabits northern parts of Africa, and Panthera leo melanochaita inhabits southern parts of Africa. Places where genetic analyses demonstrate genetic admixture, or for which results regarding the phylogeography of lions were mixed, are northern parts of East Africa and northern parts of Central Africa. Former synonyms include P. l. kamptzi,  P. l. azandica, P. l. abyssinica, P. l. massaica, P. l. nubica, P. l. roosevelti, P. l. somaliensis, and P. l. webbiensis.

Northeast / East African population


In Northeast Africa, lions occur in Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, but are regionally extinct in Djibouti and Eritrea. The results of genetic tests published in 2016 indicated that lions in the region where North Africa overlaps with East Africa (including northern Kenya and possibly northern Uganda), are genetically mixed between the Central African (P. l. leo) and Southern African lions (P. l. melanochaita). As a consequence, the taxonomic status of lions in the Horn of Africa was not resolved by the Cat Specialist Group. Subpopulations were referred to by trinomina such as Panthera leo nubica, Panthera leo roosevelti and Panthera leo somaliensis, and names such as "Abyssinian lion", "Egyptian lion", "Nubian lion", "Somali lion" and "Sudan lion", depending on the locality of occurrence.

Genetic analyses and taxonomic history
In the 19th century, a number of subspecies were described for lions in Northeast Africa. For example, zoological specimens from Nubia and Somalia were described or proposed by zoologists under the trinomina Felis leo nubicus and Felis leo somaliensis. In later centuries, these trinomina were alternatively considered to be synonymous with the scientific names of the North and East African lions.

A test done in 2012 on 15 lions at Addis Ababa Zoo and lions from 6 wild populations demonstrated that the captive lions were genetically different to wild lions in other parts of East Africa, but similar to wild lions from Cameroon and Chad.

Among six samples from captive lions which were of Ethiopian origin, five samples clustered with other East African samples, but one clustered with Sahelian samples. For a subsequent study, also eight additional samples from wild lions from the Ethiopian Highlands were included in a subsequent analysis. Three of them clustered with the Central African lion clade, and five with other East African samples. The Ethiopian Highlands east and west of the Rift Valley was therefore assumed by scientists to have been a zone of genetic admixture between the two phylogeographic groups.

Results of a phylogeographic analysis using samples from African and Asiatic lions was published in 2006. One of the African samples was a vertebra from the National Museum of Natural History (France) that originated in the Nubian part of Sudan. In terms of mitochondrial DNA, it grouped with lion skull samples from the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A phylogeographic analysis of Pleistocene cave lions, the results of which were published in 2009, revealed that a lion sample from Sudan was distinct from lion samples that originated in the northeastern part of Congo-Kinshasa.

In 2016, analysis of the genomes of lions showed that there had been a basal split between lions in northern and southern parts of Africa. Lions in northern Central Africa belong to the northern clade, and those in Southeast Africa belonged to the southern clade. Lions samples from Ethiopia were shown to be related to both the South-East African and Central African groups, indicating an overlap between these groups there.

In 2017, the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations in West, Central and North Africa to P. l. leo, and those in East Africa to P. l. melanochaita. At the same time, it was stated that these two subspecies overlap in Ethiopia.

One of the largest lion populations in Ethiopia is found in Gambella. According to genetic research, this population, which is contigous with populations in Sudan, does not belong to the Southern subspecies but to the Northern lion. The same is probably true for the populations in northern Ethiopia, where, a group of lions was recorded in 2016 in Alatash National Park close to the international border with Sudan.

Other parts of Ethiopia, which still have lions fall into the admixture zone. These are Omo and Bale Mountains National Parks, the ara around the Chew Bahir and Turkana lakes, and the Webi Shabeelle area. In 2009, a small group of less than 23 lions were estimated in Nechisar National Park located in the Great Rift Valley. This small protected area in the Ethiopian Highlands is encroached by local people and their livestock.

Lions of northern Uganda have not been analysed genetically, and might belong to the Northern subspecies. In northern Uganda, lions are present in Kidepo Valley and Murchison Falls National Parks.

In captivity
At the beginning of the 21st century, the Addis Ababa Zoo kept 16 adult lions. It is assumed that their ancestors, five males and two females, were caught in southwestern Ethiopia as part of a zoological collection for Emperor Haile Selassie I.

Central African population
The Central African lion is a population of lions in Central Africa that has been grouped under the northern subspecies (Panthera leo leo), but was also found to be related to the southern subspecies (Panthera leo melanochaita),  depending on the subpopulation, and is fragmented into small and isolated groups since the 1950s.

In 2010, Gabon, the presence of lions in Gabon's Batéké Plateau National Park had been doubtful. In 2015, a camera trap recorded a single male lion in this national park. Continued camera trapping in the area for more than one year recorded the same lion repeatedly. Its hair samples were collected for phylogenetic analysis by Barnett et al., and compared with tissue samples of lions from Gabon and the Republic of the Congo that were killed in the 20th century. Results indicate that this individual, besides extinct lions in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of the Congo, is closely related to the ancestral lion population of the area, and that its DNA shows a typical Southern lion haplotype. It is considered possible that this lion dispersed to the area from Namibia or Botswana.

By contrast, a phylogeographical analysis conducted by Bertola et al. suggested that lions in northern Central Africa, such as Cameroon, belong to the Northern lion group.

In captivity
In 2006, 1258 captive lions were registered in the International Species Information System, including 13 individuals originating from Senegal to Cameroon, and 970 with uncertain origin.