| 1. |
- Larsson, Martin NA, et al.
(författare)
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Ancient Sheep Genomes reveal four Millennia of North European Short-Tailed Sheep in the Baltic Sea region
- 2023
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sheep are among the earliest domesticated livestock species, with a wide variety of breeds present today. However, it remains unclear how far back this breed diversity goes, with formal documentation only dating back a few centuries. North European short-tailed breeds are often assumed to be among the oldest domestic sheep populations, even thought to represent relicts of the earliest sheep expansions during the Neolithic period reaching Scandinavia less than 6000 years ago. This study sequenced the genomes (up to 11.6X) of five sheep remains from the Baltic islands of Gotland and Åland, dating from Late Neolithic (∼4100 calBP) to historical times (∼1600 CE). Our findings indicate that these ancient sheep largely possessed the genetic characteristics of modern North European short-tailed breeds, suggesting a substantial degree of long-term continuity of this breed type in the Baltic Sea region. Despite the wide temporal spread, population genetic analyses show high levels of affinity between the ancient genomes and they also exhibit higher genetic diversity when compared to modern breeds, implying a loss of diversity in recent centuries associated with breed formation. Finally, we see a potential signature of an even earlier, genetically different form of sheep in Scandinavia as these samples do not represent the first sheep in Northern Europe. Our results shed light on the development of breeds in Northern Europe specifically as well as the development of genetic diversity in sheep breeds, and their expansion from the domestication center in general.
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| 2. |
- Mereu, Paolo, et al.
(författare)
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Matrilineal phylogeography of wild and feral sheep from the Mediterranean and the Middle East
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Mouflons are flagship species of the Mediterranean islands werethey persist. Once thought to be the remnants of a Europeanpopulation, archaeology suggests they were imported by humansto the islands of Cyprus in the Early Neolithic and laterto Corsica and Sardinia, and their status as wild animals hassince been disputed. To study the relationship between thisisland populations and other domestic and wild sheep fromthe Mediterranean we sequenced mitogenomes of 44 mouflonsfrom the islands, plus modern and ancient Sardinian domesticsheep and Anatolian mouflons. We used those in addition withpublicly available mitogenomes to reconstruct the phylogeny ofsheep and its closest wild relative, the Asiatic mouflon (Ovisgmelini) to describe how the free-ranging populations on theMediterranean islands fit. Our analysis highlights the structureof haplogroup B, where Sardinian mouflons form two geographicallyseparate clusters with gene flow between them and withdomestic sheep, and the isolation of the Corsican population,which appears as a basal lineage to all other sheep from thishaplogroup. While Corsican and Sardinian mouflon belong tobasal lineages of the domestic haplogroups associated with theearly European expansion, Cyprus mouflons are more relatedto Anatolian and Iranian mouflons belonging to the wild haplogroupX, which seems to be basal to the domestic C-E complex.These results highlight the unique genetic structure of thisisland populations while placing them in the wider context ofthe evolution of the Ovis genus.
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| 3. |
- Morell Miranda, Pedro, et al.
(författare)
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Ancient genomes reveal 7000 years of interconnected Demographic History between Sheep and Humans in Iberia.
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As the first domestic livestock species, sheep has had a fundamentalrole in human populations since the Neolithic. Theirdemographic history is, however, poorly understood. We successfullysequenced 13 ancient sheep from 2 sites in NorthernIberia to up to 8.74× and 1 modern Corsican mouflon to describethis demographic history at the Western extreme of theMediterranean. Our results support an initial maritime expansioninto Iberia and that European mouflons descended fromferalized Neolithic sheep. We also describe a secondary expansionof Eastern ancestry in sheep at the same time when humanSteppe ancestry arrived to Iberia, and when we expect woollysheep to expand through Europe. Lastly, we found a third expansionin the Mediterranean area during the Roman period,when some historical sources mentioned fine-wool sheep beingtraded. We see evidence that this expansion had a significanteffect in shaping the modern European sheep gene pool leadingto modern breeds like the popular Merino. These resultsillustrate the dynamic history of Iberian sheep populations, andhow human cultural and demographic changes left their footprintsin the sheep gene pool, marking them as a useful proxyfor describing complex human demographic events.
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| 4. |
- Morell Miranda, Pedro, et al.
(författare)
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Demographic reconstruction of the Western sheep expansion from whole-genome sequences
- 2023
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Ingår i: G3. - : Oxford University Press. - 2160-1836. ; 13:11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As one of the earliest livestock, sheep (Ovis aries) were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent about 12,000–10,000 years ago and have a nearly worldwide distribution today. Most of our knowledge about the timing of their expansions stems from archaeological data but it is unclear how the genetic diversity of modern sheep fits with these dates. We used whole-genome sequencing data of 63 domestic breeds and their wild relatives, the Asiatic mouflon (O. gmelini, previously known as O. orientalis), to explore the demographic history of sheep. On the global scale, our analysis revealed geographic structuring among breeds with unidirectional recent gene flow from domestics into Asiatic mouflons. We then selected 4 representative breeds from Spain, Morocco, the United Kingdom, and Iran to build a comprehensive demographic model of the Western sheep expansion. We inferred a single domestication event around 11,000 years ago. The subsequent westward expansion is dated to approximately 7,000 years ago, later than the original Neolithic expansion of sheep and slightly predating the Secondary Product Revolution associated with wooly sheep. We see some signals of recent gene flow from an ancestral population into Southern European breeds which could reflect admixture with feral European mouflon. Furthermore, our results indicate that many breeds experienced a reduction of their effective population size during the last centuries, probably associated with modern breed development. Our study provides insights into the complex demographic history of Western Eurasian sheep, highlighting interactions between breeds and their wild counterparts.
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| 5. |
- Morell Miranda, Pedro
(författare)
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Following the herd : Population genetics of European sheep in time and space
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Sheep, which were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000-12,000 years ago, have been a key resource for human populations ever since. We, however, know little about how they were domesticated, and what happened to them after their initial expansion from their domestication area into all corners of Eurasia and later Africa and the Americas. In this thesis I use state-of-the-art methods in population genetics and archaeogenetics to try to elucidate how sheep have evolved into the big diversity of modern breeds we see today and what demographic events shaped modern sheep genetic landscape in Europe. We were able to characterize the demographic history of three key locations in Europe for sheep: Iberia, the Baltic region and the Mediterranean islands. Our results confirm that the initial Neolithic expansion into Europe followed two independent routes, through the Danube-Rhine axis in Central Europe and sailing through the Mediterranean, and that mouflons from Corsica and Sardinia descend from this last early domestic sheep. We were also able to identify two independent expansions into Europe of Eastern ancestry, one related with archaic long wool, a phenotype retained by primitive European sheep breeds, and a later one associated with more modern woolly phenotypes. This last expansion, that occurred slightly before or during the Roman period in Iberia, didn’t reached the Baltic region, whose breeds are still to this day displaying primitive phenotypes. Lastly, we were able to describe the phylogeny of modern wild and feral mouflons from the Mediterranean and the Middle East. My thesis highlight the dynamic nature of the demographic history of sheep, and how responsive it has been to human demographic and cultural changes.
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| 6. |
- Yurtman, Erinç, et al.
(författare)
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Archaeogenetic analysis of Neolithic sheep from Anatolia suggests a complex demographic history since domestication
- 2021
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 4:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sheep were among the first domesticated animals, but their demographic history is little understood. Here we analyzed nuclear polymorphism and mitochondrial data (mtDNA) from ancient central and west Anatolian sheep dating from Epipaleolithic to late Neolithic, comparatively with modern-day breeds and central Asian Neolithic/Bronze Age sheep (OBI). Analyzing ancient nuclear data, we found that Anatolian Neolithic sheep (ANS) are genetically closest to present-day European breeds relative to Asian breeds, a conclusion supported by mtDNA haplogroup frequencies. In contrast, OBI showed higher genetic affinity to present-day Asian breeds. These results suggest that the east-west genetic structure observed in present-day breeds had already emerged by 6000 BCE, hinting at multiple sheep domestication episodes or early wild introgression in southwest Asia. Furthermore, we found that ANS are genetically distinct from all modern breeds. Our results suggest that European and Anatolian domestic sheep gene pools have been strongly remolded since the Neolithic.
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