| 1. |
- Ersmark, Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Genetic turnovers and northern survival during the last glacial maximum in European brown bears
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : Wiley. - 2045-7758. ; 9:10, s. 5891-5905
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The current phylogeographic pattern of European brown bears (Ursus arctos) has commonly been explained by postglacial recolonization out of geographically distinct refugia in southern Europe, a pattern well in accordance with the expansion/contraction model. Studies of ancient DNA from brown bear remains have questioned this pattern, but have failed to explain the glacial distribution of mitochondrial brown bear clades and their subsequent expansion across the European continent. We here present 136 new mitochondrial sequences generated from 346 remains from Europe, ranging in age between the Late Pleistocene and historical times. The genetic data show a high Late Pleistocene diversity across the continent and challenge the strict confinement of bears to traditional southern refugia during the last glacial maximum (LGM). The mitochondrial data further suggest a genetic turnover just before this time, as well as a steep demographic decline starting in the mid-Holocene. Levels of stable nitrogen isotopes from the remains confirm a previously proposed shift toward increasing herbivory around the LGM in Europe. Overall, these results suggest that in addition to climate, anthropogenic impact and inter-specific competition may have had more important effects on the brown bear's ecology, demography, and genetic structure than previously thought.
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| 2. |
- Haak, Wolfgang, et al.
(författare)
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Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe
- 2015
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 522:7555, s. 207-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies(1-8) and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, similar to 8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a similar to 24,000-year-old Siberian(6). By similar to 6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact similar to 4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced similar to 75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least similar to 3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin(9) of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.
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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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