Composition of the jury

• J. Britton-Davidian (Montpellier), rapporteur
• D. Stordeur (Lyon-Jalès), rapporteur
• J. Guilaine (Coll. de France, Toulouse)
• D. Helmer (Lyon-Jalès)
• S. Thiébault (Nanterre)
• J.-C. Auffray (Jerusalem), co-director
• J.-D. Vigne (Museum), director.

Key-words

Mus musculus, Commensalism, Biological invasion, Geometric Morphometric, Systematic, Phylogeography, Island evolution, Neolithic, Ancient sailing, Anthropisation

Abstract

This work attempted to throw light on the factors of anthropisation which are in cause in the process of commensalism and of invasion of the house mouse, Mus musculus domesticus, in the circum-Mediterranean area, according to a phylogeographical approach, strictly connected to the history of the birth and spread of the Neolithic.

The first stage of this work consisted in quantifying the current morphological variety of the genus Mus in the Mediterranean basin to propose undated historic scenarios. The analysis of the outline of the first lower molar by the elliptic Fourier transform, a powerful taxonomic descriptor well suited to the split up fossil bones, showed itself as successful as the use of the genetic marker to distinguish all the subspecies of the genus. It even allowed to put in evidence of clades which are not described by genetic molecular. In Corsica, we showed that recent increase (XIXth century) of anthropisation had homogenized the mice métapopulations which presented all, previously, a strong syndrome of insularity. In that case, factor time takes it so on the geographic isolation. In Cyprus, we discovered that the non commensal mouse of the island is in fact a new species (Mus cypriacus), and showed that it was one of the very rare relics of Mediterranean island Pleistocene microfauna.

Hardly of this geometric morphometric approach, we have, in a second time, questioned the palaeontological and zooarchaeological archives, to restore a spatio-temporal dimension of the current house mouse distribution, compared to the evolution of human societies. We observed first of all that there was no migratory wave of Mus musculus sp. in the Mediterranean area during the Pleistocene. We then identified the neolithisation of Near East, more particularly the development of the agriculture, as the main factor of the commensalism of the house mouse, to the detriment of settled way of life. They are the practices of the Neolithic, as the stocking of the large-scale beads (unattested before the PPNA), which were determining in the adaptation of the mouse to the commensal niche.

We demonstrated finally that Neolithic navigation had allowed the accidental translocation of mouse and had been intense enough to dike any morphological island drift of house mouse metapopulations. Nevertheless, the invasion of the house mouse in the western Mediterranean coincides with a more advanced stage of anthropisation: the joint intensification of exchanges and urbanization from the first millennium BC, allowed the house mouse to surmount the ecological and genetic barriers which, previously, prevented her progress westward.