Parameterizing Pantherinae: de novo mutation rate estimates from Panthera and Neofelis pedigrees

Estimates of de novo mutation rates are essential for phylogenetic and demographic analyses, but their inference has previously been impeded by high error rates in sequence data and uncertainty in the fossil record. Here, we directly estimate de novo germline mutation rates for all extant members of Panthera, as well as the closely related outgroup Neofelis nebulosa, using pedigrees. We use a previously validated pipeline (RatesTools) to calculate mutation rate for each species and subsequently explore the impacts of the novel rates on historic effective population size estimates in each of these charismatic felids of conservation concern. Importantly, we find that the choice of reference genome, the data type and coverage, and the individual all impact estimates of the mutation rate. Despite these stochastic effects, we inferred that base pair mutation rates for all species fell between 0.5 and 1.4e-08 per generation per base pair (mean 0.81e-08 {+/-} 0.35-08 across Pantherinae). Our results provide a cautionary view on inter-species mutation rate comparisons, given the error associated with the reference genome choice and sequencing depth of coverage of the individuals.