Fig. 5

Genome-wide heterozygosity, inbreeding, and deleterious variation in snow leopards and other Carnivora species or subspecies. A A negative correlation was observed between Froh and genome-wide heterozygosity across 12 Carnivora species or subspecies. B, C Snow leopards harbored an extremely low genome-wide heterozygosity, comparable to that of cheetahs, along with a moderately high level of inbreeding. Brown points represent the “Threatened group,” while blue points represent the “Non-threatened group.” D–F Compared to other 11 Carnivora species or subspecies, snow leopards displayed a lower ratio of strongly deleterious variants (deleterious and LOF mutations) and a moderate ratio of weakly deleterious variants (tolerated mutations). G Strongly deleterious variants (DEL + LOF mutations) were to some extent purged in snow leopards by historical population bottlenecks and inbreeding. In snow leopards, the number of deleterious variants (DEL, LOF, and TOL mutations) was significantly lower in the ROH region compared to non-ROH region. Additionally, the number of strongly deleterious variants was lower than that of weakly deleterious variants (TOL mutations). H Snow leopards had significantly fewer deleterious variants (DEL, LOF, and TOL mutations) compared to the 11 other Carnivora species or subspecies, particularly for strongly deleterious variants within ROH regions