Phylogeography of the common hamster(Cricetus cricetus):paleoclimatic reconstructions of Late Pleistocene colonization

INTRODUCTION Anthropogenic activities and associated factors such as climate change and habitat destruction are causing the ongoing sixth mass extinction on Earth,which is a major characteristic of the Anthropocene.Collectively,these factors pose the most serious environmental threat to the existence of civilization because it is irreversible.More than 500 species of mammals were found to be on the brink of extinction and likely to be lost within 20 years(Ceballos et al.2020).One example is the common hamster Cricetus cricetus(Linnaeus,1758).In 2020,this species was classified as Critically Endangered across its global range by the IUCN Red List(Banaszek et al.2020).The protection status of the common hamster was elevated by 4 levels at once—from Least Concern to Critically Endangered.Although the causes behind the dramatic decline of the species are not fully understood,one may suppose it stems from the negative impact of habitat degradation and even climate change(Banaszek et al.2020).