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Study

Phylogeography and genetic ancestry of tigers (Panthera tigris)

Luo, S.-J.; Kim, J.-H.; Johnson, W. E.; van der Walt, J.; Martenson, J.; Yuhki, N.; Miquelle, D. G.; Uphyrkina, O.; Goodrich, J. M.; Quigley, H. B.; Tilson, R.; Brady, G.; Martelli, P.; Subramaniam, V.; McDougal, C.; Hean, S.; Huang, S.-Q.; Pan, W.; Karanth, U. K.; Sunquist, M.; Smith, J. L. D.; O'Brien, S. J.

PLoS Biology, 2004

Peer-reviewedgenomic studylaboratory

What they did

Tigers whose wild geographic origin could be verified were genotyped at mitochondrial and nuclear markers, and the resulting population structure compared with the traditional subspecies map drawn from skulls and skins.

Studied in
Panthera tigris
Sample size
134 tigers of verified geographic origin genotyped

What they found

Tigers fall into a small number of genetically distinguishable groups that only partly match the traditional subspecies. The differences between them are shallow, consistent with a recent common ancestry, and one group — the Malayan tiger — had not previously been recognised at all.

What it means

The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.

How the authors put it

Living tigers descend from a recent common ancestor and comprise fewer, differently drawn units than the classical subspecies scheme, which has direct consequences for how captive and wild populations are managed.

How NatureHQ reads it

The finding that matters for a general reader is how *little* difference there is. Tigers look regionally distinct and are genuinely divergent in size and coat, but the genetic depth beneath that is small — the whole living radiation is recent. That is also why the subspecies count is unsettled rather than fixed, and why an article confidently naming nine kinds of tiger is quoting a scheme the genetics has revised.

Limitations

  • Verified-origin samples are scarce, so some regions rest on few individuals.
  • Marker-based rather than whole-genome; later genome work refined the picture.
  • Three populations were already extinct and are represented only by museum material or not at all.

What this study is used for on NatureHQ

One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.

Finding the paper

Published by: Public Library of SciencePublished in a PLOS journal under CC BY 4.0.

doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020442

This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref on 2026-08-11.

NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-11.