Fig. 5: Demographic history of the four desert rodents during historical climate changes.

a Effective population sizes of the four desert rodents reconstructed using the PSMC model (g, generation time, years; μ, neutral mutation rate per generation). The period of the Penultimate Glaciation (PG, 330–130 ka), and the Last Glaciation (LG, 75–10 ka) are shaded in light blue, and the period of the Last Interglaciation (LIG, 130–800 ka) is shaded in light orange. b The relative temporal changes in annual precipitation and annual mean temperature from 787 Ka to present within a defined region (Lat: 33 N, 55 N; Long: 70E, 130E) including the distributions of the four desert species. The annual mean temperature and annual precipitation layers during the Quaternary were downloaded from PaleoClim database.