1
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Timmermann A, Wasay A, Raia P. Phase synchronization between culture and climate forcing. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20240320. [PMID: 38864318 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0320] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/05/2024] [Indexed: 06/13/2024] Open
Abstract
Over the history of humankind, cultural innovations have helped improve survival and adaptation to environmental stress. This has led to an overall increase in human population size, which in turn further contributed to cumulative cultural learning. During the Anthropocene, or arguably even earlier, this positive sociodemographic feedback has caused a strong decline in important resources that, coupled with projected future transgression of planetary boundaries, may potentially reverse the long-term trend in population growth. Here, we present a simple consumer/resource model that captures the coupled dynamics of stochastic cultural learning and transmission, population growth and resource depletion in a changing environment. The idealized stochastic mathematical model simulates boom/bust cycles between low-population subsistence, high-density resource exploitation and subsequent population decline. For slow resource recovery time scales and in the absence of climate forcing, the model predicts a long-term global population collapse. Including a simplified periodic climate forcing, we find that cultural innovation and population growth can couple with climatic forcing via nonlinear phase synchronization. We discuss the relevance of this finding in the context of cultural innovation, the anthropological record and long-term future resilience of our own predatory species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axel Timmermann
- IBS Center for Climate Physics , Busan, South Korea
- Pusan National University , Busan, South Korea
| | - Abdul Wasay
- IBS Center for Climate Physics , Busan, South Korea
- Pusan National University , Busan, South Korea
| | - Pasquale Raia
- DiSTAR, Monte Sant'Angelo, Napoli Università di Napoli Federico II , Naples, Italy
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2
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D'Atanasio E, Risi F, Ravasini F, Montinaro F, Hajiesmaeil M, Bonucci B, Pistacchia L, Amoako-Sakyi D, Bonito M, Onidi S, Colombo G, Semino O, Destro Bisol G, Anagnostou P, Metspalu M, Tambets K, Trombetta B, Cruciani F. The genomic echoes of the last Green Sahara on the Fulani and Sahelian people. Curr Biol 2023; 33:5495-5504.e4. [PMID: 37995693 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2023] [Revised: 09/28/2023] [Accepted: 10/31/2023] [Indexed: 11/25/2023]
Abstract
The population history of the Sahara/Sahelian belt is understudied, despite previous work highlighting complex dynamics.1,2,3,4,5,6,7 The Sahelian Fulani, i.e., the largest nomadic pastoral population in the world,8 represent an interesting case because they show a non-negligible proportion of an Eurasian genetic component, usually explained by recent admixture with northern Africans.1,2,5,6,7,9,10,11,12 Nevertheless, their origins are largely unknown, although several hypotheses have been proposed, including a possible link to ancient peoples settled in the Sahara during its last humid phase (Green Sahara, 12,000-5,000 years before present [BP]).13,14,15 To shed light about the Fulani ancient genetic roots, we produced 23 high-coverage (30×) whole genomes from Fulani individuals from 8 Sahelian countries, plus 17 samples from other African groups and 3 from Europeans as controls, for a total of 43 new whole genomes. These data have been compared with 814 published modern whole genomes2,16,17,18 and with relevant published ancient sequences (> 1,800 samples).19 These analyses showed some evidence that the non-sub-Saharan genetic ancestry component of the Fulani might have also been shaped by older events,1,5,6 possibly tracing the Fulani origins to unsampled ancient Green Saharan population(s). The joint analysis of modern and ancient samples allowed us to shed light on the genetic ancestry composition of such ancient Saharans, suggesting a similarity with Late Neolithic Moroccans and possibly pointing to a link with the spread of cattle herding. We also identified two different Fulani clusters whose admixture pattern may be informative about the historical Fulani movements and their later involvement in the western African empires.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eugenia D'Atanasio
- Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy.
| | - Flavia Risi
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Francesco Ravasini
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Francesco Montinaro
- Department of Biology, University of Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy; Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | - Mogge Hajiesmaeil
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | | | - Letizia Pistacchia
- Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy; Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Daniel Amoako-Sakyi
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
| | - Maria Bonito
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Sara Onidi
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Giulia Colombo
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
| | - Ornella Semino
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
| | - Giovanni Destro Bisol
- Department of Enviromental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy; Istituto Italiano di Antropologia, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Paolo Anagnostou
- Department of Enviromental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Mait Metspalu
- Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, 51010 Tartu, Estonia
| | | | - Beniamino Trombetta
- Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
| | - Fulvio Cruciani
- Institute of Molecular Biology and Pathology, National Research Council, 00185 Rome, Italy; Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
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3
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Hernández-Alonso G, Ramos-Madrigal J, van Grouw H, Ciucani MM, Cavill EL, Sinding MHS, Gopalakrishnan S, Pacheco G, Gilbert MTP. Redefining the Evolutionary History of the Rock Dove, Columba livia, Using Whole Genome Sequences. Mol Biol Evol 2023; 40:msad243. [PMID: 37950889 PMCID: PMC10667084 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msad243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2023] [Revised: 10/10/2023] [Accepted: 11/03/2023] [Indexed: 11/13/2023] Open
Abstract
The domestic pigeon's exceptional phenotypic diversity was key in developing Darwin's Theory of Evolution and establishing the concept of artificial selection. However, unlike its domestic counterpart, its wild progenitor, the rock dove Columba livia has received considerably less attention. Therefore, questions regarding its domestication, evolution, taxonomy, and conservation status remain unresolved. We generated whole-genome sequencing data from 65 historical rock doves that represent all currently recognized subspecies and span the species' original geographic distribution. Our dataset includes 3 specimens from Darwin's collection, and the type specimens of 5 different taxa. We characterized their population structure, genomic diversity, and gene-flow patterns. Our results show the West African subspecies C. l. gymnocyclus is basal to rock doves and domestic pigeons, and suggests gene-flow between the rock dove's sister species C. rupestris, and the ancestor of rock doves after its split from West African populations. These genomes allowed us to propose a model for the evolution of the rock dove in light of the refugia theory. We propose that rock dove genetic diversity and introgression patterns derive from a history of allopatric cycles and dispersion waves during the Quaternary glacial and interglacial periods. To explore the rock dove domestication history, we combined our new dataset with available genomes from domestic pigeons. Our results point to at least 1 domestication event in the Levant that gave rise to all domestic breeds analysed in this study. Finally, we propose a species-level taxonomic arrangement to reflect the evolutionary history of the West African rock dove populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Germán Hernández-Alonso
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Hein van Grouw
- Bird Group, Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Tring, United Kingdom
| | - Marta Maria Ciucani
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Emily Louisa Cavill
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | | | - Shyam Gopalakrishnan
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Bioinformatics, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
| | - George Pacheco
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - M Thomas P Gilbert
- Section for Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, The Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- University Museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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4
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Armstrong E, Tallavaara M, Hopcroft PO, Valdes PJ. North African humid periods over the past 800,000 years. Nat Commun 2023; 14:5549. [PMID: 37684244 PMCID: PMC10491769 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41219-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2023] [Accepted: 08/24/2023] [Indexed: 09/10/2023] Open
Abstract
The Sahara region has experienced periodic wet periods over the Quaternary and beyond. These North African Humid Periods (NAHPs) are astronomically paced by precession which controls the intensity of the African monsoon system. However, most climate models cannot reconcile the magnitude of these events and so the driving mechanisms remain poorly constrained. Here, we utilise a recently developed version of the HadCM3B coupled climate model that simulates 20 NAHPs over the past 800 kyr which have good agreement with NAHPs identified in proxy data. Our results show that precession determines NAHP pacing, but we identify that their amplitude is strongly linked to eccentricity via its control over ice sheet extent. During glacial periods, enhanced ice-albedo driven cooling suppresses NAHP amplitude at precession minima, when humid conditions would otherwise be expected. This highlights the importance of both precession and eccentricity, and the role of high latitude processes in determining the timing and amplitude of the NAHPs. This may have implications for the out of Africa dispersal of plants and animals throughout the Quaternary.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edward Armstrong
- Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
| | - Miikka Tallavaara
- Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Peter O Hopcroft
- School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Paul J Valdes
- School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
- Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
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5
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Ait Brahim Y, Sha L, Wassenburg JA, Azennoud K, Cheng H, Cruz FW, Bouchaou L. The spatiotemporal extent of the Green Sahara during the last glacial period. iScience 2023; 26:107018. [PMID: 37416475 PMCID: PMC10320408 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2022] [Revised: 03/19/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 07/08/2023] Open
Abstract
The Sahara Desert, one of today's most inhospitable environments, has known periods of enhanced precipitation that supported pre-historic humans. However, the Green Sahara timing and moisture sources are not well known due to limited paleoclimate information. Here, we present a multi-proxy (δ18O, δ13C, Δ17O, and trace elements) speleothem-based climate record from Northwest (NW) Africa. Our data document two Green Sahara periods during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a and the Early to Mid-Holocene. Consistency with paleoclimate records across North Africa highlights the east-west geographical extent of the Green Sahara, whereas millennial-scale North Atlantic cooling (Heinrich) events consistently resulted in drier conditions. We demonstrate that an increase in westerly-originating winter precipitation during MIS5a resulted in favorable environmental conditions. The comparison of paleoclimate data with local archaeological sequences highlights the abrupt climate deterioration and the decline in human density in NW Africa during the MIS5-4 transition, which suggests climate-forced dispersals of populations, with possible implications for pathways into Eurasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yassine Ait Brahim
- International Water Research Institute, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Benguerir, Morocco
| | - Lijuan Sha
- Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong Uniersity, Xi’an, China
| | - Jasper A. Wassenburg
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, 46241, Republic of Korea
- Pusan National University, Busan, 46241, Republic of Korea
| | - Khalil Azennoud
- International Water Research Institute, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Benguerir, Morocco
| | - Hai Cheng
- Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong Uniersity, Xi’an, China
| | - Francisco W. Cruz
- Instituto de Geociências, University of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
| | - Lhoussaine Bouchaou
- International Water Research Institute, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Benguerir, Morocco
- Laboratory of Applied Geology and Geo-Environmental, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco
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6
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Zeller E, Timmermann A, Yun KS, Raia P, Stein K, Ruan J. Human adaptation to diverse biomes over the past 3 million years. Science 2023; 380:604-608. [PMID: 37167387 DOI: 10.1126/science.abq1288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/13/2023]
Abstract
To investigate the role of vegetation and ecosystem diversity on hominin adaptation and migration, we identify past human habitat preferences over time using a transient 3-million-year earth system-biome model simulation and an extensive hominin fossil and archaeological database. Our analysis shows that early African hominins predominantly lived in open environments such as grassland and dry shrubland. Migrating into Eurasia, hominins adapted to a broader range of biomes over time. By linking the location and age of hominin sites with corresponding simulated regional biomes, we also find that our ancestors actively selected for spatially diverse environments. The quantitative results lead to a new diversity hypothesis: Homo species, in particular Homo sapiens, were specially equipped to adapt to landscape mosaics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elke Zeller
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, Republic of Korea
- Department of Climate System, Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
| | - Axel Timmermann
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, Republic of Korea
- Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
| | - Kyung-Sook Yun
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, Republic of Korea
- Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
| | - Pasquale Raia
- DiSTAR, Napoli Università di Napoli Federico II, Monte Sant'Angelo, Italy
| | - Karl Stein
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, Republic of Korea
- Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
| | - Jiaoyang Ruan
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, Republic of Korea
- Pusan National University, Busan, Republic of Korea
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7
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Harvati K, Reyes-Centeno H. Evolution of Homo in the Middle and Late Pleistocene. J Hum Evol 2022; 173:103279. [PMID: 36375244 PMCID: PMC9703123 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/27/2022] [Revised: 10/10/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
The Middle and Late Pleistocene is arguably the most interesting period in human evolution. This broad period witnessed the evolution of our own lineage, as well as that of our sister taxon, the Neanderthals, and related Denisovans. It is exceptionally rich in both fossil and archaeological remains, and uniquely benefits from insights gained through molecular approaches, such as paleogenetics and paleoproteomics, that are currently not widely applicable in earlier contexts. This wealth of information paints a highly complex picture, often described as 'the Muddle in the Middle,' defying the common adage that 'more evidence is needed' to resolve it. Here we review competing phylogenetic scenarios and the historical and theoretical developments that shaped our approaches to the fossil record, as well as some of the many remaining open questions associated with this period. We propose that advancing our understanding of this critical time requires more than the addition of data and will necessitate a major shift in our conceptual and theoretical framework.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katerina Harvati
- Paleoanthropology, Institute for Archaeological Sciences and Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Rümelinstrasse 19-23, Tübingen 72070, Germany; DFG Centre for Advanced Studies 'Words, Bones, Genes, Tools: Tracking Linguistic, Cultural and Biological Trajectories of the Human Past', Rümelinstrasse 19-23, Tübingen 72070, Germany.
| | - Hugo Reyes-Centeno
- Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 211 Lafferty Hall, Lexington, KY 40506, USA; William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 1020 Export St, Lexington, KY 40504, USA
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8
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Quinn RL, Lepre CJ. C 4 plant food loss probably influenced Paranthropus boisei's extinction: A reply to Patterson et al.'s commentary on Quinn and Lepre (2021). J Hum Evol 2022; 173:103269. [PMID: 36270813 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103269] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Revised: 09/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Rhonda L Quinn
- School of Earth, Environment and Society, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43402, USA.
| | - Christopher J Lepre
- School of Earth, Environment and Society, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, 43402, USA
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9
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Birds adapted to cold conditions show greater changes in range size related to past climatic oscillations than temperate birds. Sci Rep 2022; 12:10813. [PMID: 35752649 PMCID: PMC9233688 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-14972-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2021] [Accepted: 06/15/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Investigation of ecological responses of species to past climate oscillations provides crucial information to understand the effects of global warming. In this work, we investigated how past climate changes affected the distribution of six bird species with different climatic requirements and migratory behaviours in the Western Palearctic and in Africa. Species Distribution Models and Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 2 fossil occurrences of selected species were employed to evaluate the relation between changes in range size and species climatic tolerances. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) range predictions, generally well supported by the MIS 2 fossil occurrences, suggest that cold-dwelling species considerably expanded their distribution in the LGM, experiencing more pronounced net changes in range size compared to temperate species. Overall, the thermal niche proves to be a key ecological trait for explaining the impact of climate change in species distributions. Thermal niche is linked to range size variations due to climatic oscillations, with cold-adapted species currently suffering a more striking range reduction compared to temperate species. This work also supports the persistence of Afro-Palearctic migrations during the LGM due to the presence of climatically suitable wintering areas in Africa even during glacial maxima.
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10
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Pleistocene drivers of Northwest African hydroclimate and vegetation. Nat Commun 2022; 13:3552. [PMID: 35729104 PMCID: PMC9213457 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31120-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2021] [Accepted: 06/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Savanna ecosystems were the landscapes for human evolution and are vital to modern Sub-Saharan African food security, yet the fundamental drivers of climate and ecology in these ecosystems remain unclear. Here we generate plant-wax isotope and dust flux records to explore the mechanistic drivers of the Northwest African monsoon, and to assess ecosystem responses to changes in monsoon rainfall and atmospheric pCO2. We show that monsoon rainfall is controlled by low-latitude insolation gradients and that while increases in precipitation are associated with expansion of grasslands into desert landscapes, changes in pCO2 predominantly drive the C3/C4 composition of savanna ecosystems.
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11
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The relevance of late MSA mandibles on the emergence of modern morphology in Northern Africa. Sci Rep 2022; 12:8841. [PMID: 35614148 PMCID: PMC9133045 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-12607-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
North Africa is a key area for understanding hominin population movements and the expansion of our species. It is home to the earliest currently known Homo sapiens (Jebel Irhoud) and several late Middle Stone Age (MSA) fossils, notably Kébibat, Contrebandiers 1, Dar-es-Soltane II H5 and El Harhoura. Mostly referred to as “Aterian” they fill a gap in the North African fossil record between Jebel Irhoud and Iberomaurusians. We explore morphological continuity in this region by quantifying mandibular shape using 3D (semi)landmark geometric morphometric methods in a comparative framework of late Early and Middle Pleistocene hominins (n = 15), Neanderthals (n = 27) and H. sapiens (n = 145). We discovered a set of mixed features among late MSA fossils that is in line with an accretion of modern traits through time and an ongoing masticatory gracilization process. In Northern Africa, Aterians display similarities to Iberomaurusians and recent humans in the area as well as to the Tighenif and Thomas Quarry hominins, suggesting a greater time depth for regional continuity than previously assumed. The evidence we lay out for a long-term succession of hominins and humans emphasizes North Africa’s role as source area of the earliest H. sapiens.
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12
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Timmermann A, Yun KS, Raia P, Ruan J, Mondanaro A, Zeller E, Zollikofer C, Ponce de León M, Lemmon D, Willeit M, Ganopolski A. Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions. Nature 2022; 604:495-501. [PMID: 35418680 PMCID: PMC9021022 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04600-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
It has long been believed that climate shifts during the last 2 million years had a pivotal role in the evolution of our genus Homo1–3. However, given the limited number of representative palaeo-climate datasets from regions of anthropological interest, it has remained challenging to quantify this linkage. Here, we use an unprecedented transient Pleistocene coupled general circulation model simulation in combination with an extensive compilation of fossil and archaeological records to study the spatiotemporal habitat suitability for five hominin species over the past 2 million years. We show that astronomically forced changes in temperature, rainfall and terrestrial net primary production had a major impact on the observed distributions of these species. During the Early Pleistocene, hominins settled primarily in environments with weak orbital-scale climate variability. This behaviour changed substantially after the mid-Pleistocene transition, when archaic humans became global wanderers who adapted to a wide range of spatial climatic gradients. Analysis of the simulated hominin habitat overlap from approximately 300–400 thousand years ago further suggests that antiphased climate disruptions in southern Africa and Eurasia contributed to the evolutionary transformation of Homo heidelbergensis populations into Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, respectively. Our robust numerical simulations of climate-induced habitat changes provide a framework to test hypotheses on our human origin. A new model simulation of climate change during the past 2 million years indicates that the appearances and disappearances of hominin species correlate with long-term climatic anomalies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axel Timmermann
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea. .,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea.
| | - Kyung-Sook Yun
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | - Pasquale Raia
- DiSTAR, Università di Napoli Federico II, Monte Sant'Angelo, Naples, Italy
| | - Jiaoyang Ruan
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | | | - Elke Zeller
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | | | | | - Danielle Lemmon
- Center for Climate Physics, Institute for Basic Science, Busan, South Korea.,Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea
| | - Matteo Willeit
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany
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13
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Hempel E, Westbury MV, Grau JH, Trinks A, Paijmans JLA, Kliver S, Barlow A, Mayer F, Müller J, Chen L, Koepfli KP, Hofreiter M, Bibi F. Diversity and Paleodemography of the Addax ( Addax nasomaculatus), a Saharan Antelope on the Verge of Extinction. Genes (Basel) 2021; 12:genes12081236. [PMID: 34440410 PMCID: PMC8394336 DOI: 10.3390/genes12081236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2021] [Revised: 08/05/2021] [Accepted: 08/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Since the 19th century, the addax (Addax nasomaculatus) has lost approximately 99% of its former range. Along with its close relatives, the blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus) and the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), the addax may be the third large African mammal species to go extinct in the wild in recent times. Despite this, the evolutionary history of this critically endangered species remains virtually unknown. To gain insight into the population history of the addax, we used hybridization capture to generate ten complete mitochondrial genomes from historical samples and assembled a nuclear genome. We found that both mitochondrial and nuclear diversity are low compared to other African bovids. Analysis of mitochondrial genomes revealed a most recent common ancestor ~32 kya (95% CI 11–58 kya) and weak phylogeographic structure, indicating that the addax likely existed as a highly mobile, panmictic population across its Sahelo–Saharan range in the past. PSMC analysis revealed a continuous decline in effective population size since ~2 Ma, with short intermediate increases at ~500 and ~44 kya. Our results suggest that the addax went through a major bottleneck in the Late Pleistocene, remaining at low population size prior to the human disturbances of the last few centuries.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisabeth Hempel
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; (F.M.); (J.M.); (F.B.)
- Correspondence:
| | - Michael V. Westbury
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- Section for Evolutionary Genomics, The GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark;
| | - José H. Grau
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; (F.M.); (J.M.); (F.B.)
| | - Alexandra Trinks
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- Institute of Pathology, Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany;
| | - Johanna L. A. Paijmans
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK;
| | - Sergei Kliver
- Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology SB RAS, 8/2 Acad. Lavrentiev Ave, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia;
| | - Axel Barlow
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
- School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Lane, Nottingham NG11 8NS, UK;
| | - Frieder Mayer
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; (F.M.); (J.M.); (F.B.)
| | - Johannes Müller
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; (F.M.); (J.M.); (F.B.)
| | - Lei Chen
- School of Ecology and Environment, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China;
| | - Klaus-Peter Koepfli
- Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, George Mason University, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA;
- Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Center for Species Survival, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA
- Computer Technologies Laboratory, ITMO University, 197101 Saint Petersburg, Russia
| | - Michael Hofreiter
- Evolutionary Adaptive Genomics, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 24-25, 14476 Potsdam, Germany; (J.H.G.); (M.H.)
| | - Faysal Bibi
- Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany; (F.M.); (J.M.); (F.B.)
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14
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Early humans far from the South African coast collected unusual objects. Nature 2021; 592:193-194. [PMID: 33790435 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-00795-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
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15
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Cooper DM, Dugmore AJ, Kitchener AC, Metzger MJ, Trabucco A. A kingdom in decline: Holocene range contraction of the lion ( Panthera leo) modelled with global environmental stratification. PeerJ 2021; 9:e10504. [PMID: 33628628 PMCID: PMC7891088 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.10504] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2020] [Accepted: 11/15/2020] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Aim We use ecological niche models and environmental stratification of palaeoclimate to reconstruct the changing range of the lion (Panthera leo) during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Location The modern (early 21st century) range of the lion extends from southern Africa to the western Indian Subcontinent, yet through the 20th century this range has been drastically reduced in extent and become increasingly fragmented as a result of human impacts. Methods We use Global Environmental Stratification with MaxEnt ecological niche models to map environmental suitability of the lion under current and palaeoclimatic scenarios. By examining modelled lion range in terms of categorical environmental strata, we characterise suitable bioclimatic conditions for the lion in a descriptive manner. Results We find that lion habitat suitability has reduced throughout the Holocene, controlled by pluvial/interpluvial cycles. The aridification of the Sahara 6ka dramatically reduced lion range throughout North Africa. The association of Saharan aridification with the development of pastoralism and the growth of sedentary communities, who practised animal husbandry, would have placed additional and lasting anthropogenic pressures on the lion. Main Conclusions This research highlights the need to integrate the full effects of the fluctuating vegetation and desiccation of the Sahara into palaeoclimatic models, and provides a starting point for further continental-scale analyses of shifting faunal ranges through North Africa and the Near East during the Holocene. This scale of ecological niche modelling does not explain the current pattern of genetic variation in the lion, and we conclude that narrow but substantial physical barriers, such as rivers, have likely played a major role in population vicariance throughout the Late Pleistocene.
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Affiliation(s)
- David M Cooper
- Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences,, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.,Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Andrew J Dugmore
- Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences,, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.,Human Ecodynamics Research Center and Doctoral Program in Anthropology, City University of New York (CUNY), NY, United States of America
| | - Andrew C Kitchener
- Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences,, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.,Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Marc J Metzger
- Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences,, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
| | - Antonio Trabucco
- Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, IAFES Division, Sassari, Italy
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16
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Sarabia C, vonHoldt B, Larrasoaña JC, Uríos V, Leonard JA. Pleistocene climate fluctuations drove demographic history of African golden wolves (Canis lupaster). Mol Ecol 2020; 30:6101-6120. [PMID: 33372365 DOI: 10.1111/mec.15784] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2020] [Revised: 12/03/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
Pleistocene climate change impacted entire ecosystems throughout the world. In the northern hemisphere, the distribution of Arctic species expanded during glacial periods, while more temperate and mesic species contracted into climatic refugia, where isolation drove genetic divergence. Cycles of local cooling and warming in the Sahara region of northern Africa caused repeated contractions and expansions of savannah-like environments which connected mesic species isolated in refugia during interglacial times, possibly driving population expansions and contractions; divergence and geneflow in the associated fauna. Here, we use whole genome sequences of African golden wolves (Canis lupaster), a generalist mesopredator with a wide distribution in northern Africa to estimate their demographic history and past episodes of geneflow. We detect a correlation between divergence times and cycles of increased aridity-associated Pleistocene glacial cycles. A complex demographic history with responses to local climate change in different lineages was found, including a relict lineage north of the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco that has been isolated for more than 18,000 years, possibly a distinct ecotype.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos Sarabia
- Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC, Seville, Spain
| | - Bridgett vonHoldt
- Faculty of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Princeton, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | | | - Vicente Uríos
- Vertebrate Zoology Research Group, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain
| | - Jennifer A Leonard
- Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC, Seville, Spain
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17
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Primate phylogenomics uncovers multiple rapid radiations and ancient interspecific introgression. PLoS Biol 2020; 18:e3000954. [PMID: 33270638 PMCID: PMC7738166 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000954] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/15/2020] [Revised: 12/15/2020] [Accepted: 11/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Our understanding of the evolutionary history of primates is undergoing continual revision due to ongoing genome sequencing efforts. Bolstered by growing fossil evidence, these data have led to increased acceptance of once controversial hypotheses regarding phylogenetic relationships, hybridization and introgression, and the biogeographical history of primate groups. Among these findings is a pattern of recent introgression between species within all major primate groups examined to date, though little is known about introgression deeper in time. To address this and other phylogenetic questions, here, we present new reference genome assemblies for 3 Old World monkey (OWM) species: Colobus angolensis ssp. palliatus (the black and white colobus), Macaca nemestrina (southern pig-tailed macaque), and Mandrillus leucophaeus (the drill). We combine these data with 23 additional primate genomes to estimate both the species tree and individual gene trees using thousands of loci. While our species tree is largely consistent with previous phylogenetic hypotheses, the gene trees reveal high levels of genealogical discordance associated with multiple primate radiations. We use strongly asymmetric patterns of gene tree discordance around specific branches to identify multiple instances of introgression between ancestral primate lineages. In addition, we exploit recent fossil evidence to perform fossil-calibrated molecular dating analyses across the tree. Taken together, our genome-wide data help to resolve multiple contentious sets of relationships among primates, while also providing insight into the biological processes and technical artifacts that led to the disagreements in the first place. Combining three newly sequenced primate genomes with other published genomes, this study adapts a little-known method for detecting ancient introgression to genome-scale data, revealing multiple previously unknown examples of hybridization between primate species.
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18
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Roos C, Knauf S, Chuma IS, Maille A, Callou C, Sabin R, Portela Miguez R, Zinner D. New mitogenomic lineages in Papio baboons and their phylogeographic implications. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2020; 174:407-417. [PMID: 33244782 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24186] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2020] [Revised: 10/01/2020] [Accepted: 11/09/2020] [Indexed: 01/20/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Incomplete and/or biased sampling either on a taxonomic or geographic level can lead to delusive phylogenetic and phylogeographic inferences. However, a complete taxonomic and geographical sampling is often and for various reasons impossible, particularly for widespread taxa such as baboons (Papio spp.). Previous studies on baboon phylogeography identified several sampling gaps, some of which we fill by investigating additional material including samples from museum specimens. MATERIALS AND METHODS We generated 10 new mitochondrial genomes either via conventional PCR and subsequent Sanger sequencing from two blood samples or via high-throughput shotgun sequencing from degraded DNA extracted from eight museum specimens. Phylogenetic relationships and divergence times among baboon lineages were determined using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inferences. RESULTS We identified new mitochondrial lineages in baboons from Central Africa (Chad, the Central African Republic), from the Mahale, and the Udzungwa Mountains (Tanzania), with the latter likely representing a case of mitochondrial capture from sympatric kipunjis (Rungwecebus kipunji). We also found that the mitochondrial clades of olive baboons found in Ivory Coast and Tanzania extend into Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, respectively. Moreover, an olive baboon from Sierra Leone carries a mitochondrial haplotype usually found in Guinea baboons, suggesting gene flow between these two species. DISCUSSION The extension of the geographic sampling by including samples from areas difficult to visit or from populations that are most likely extirpated has improved the geographic and temporal resolution of the mitochondrial phylogeny of baboons considerably. Our study also shows the great value of museum material for genetic analyses even when DNA is highly degraded.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Roos
- Primate Genetics Laboratory, German Primate Center (DPZ), Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.,Gene Bank of Primates, German Primate Center (DPZ), Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Sascha Knauf
- Work Group Neglected Tropical Diseases, Infection Biology Unit, German Primate Center (DPZ), Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.,Department for Animal Sciences, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Idrissa S Chuma
- Department of Veterinary Medicine and Public Health, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania
| | - Audrey Maille
- Unité Eco-Anthropologie (EA), Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, CNRS, Musée de l'Homme, Université de Paris, Paris, France
| | - Cécile Callou
- Archéozoologie, Archéobotanique: Sociétés, Pratiques et Environnements (AASPE), Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, CNRS, Paris, France
| | | | | | - Dietmar Zinner
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center (DPZ), Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz Science Campus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany.,Department of Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany
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19
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Molecular Species Delimitation of Larks (Aves: Alaudidae), and Integrative Taxonomy of the Genus Calandrella, with the Description of a Range-Restricted African Relic Taxon. DIVERSITY 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/d12110428] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Larks constitute an avian family of exceptional cryptic diversity and striking examples of convergent evolution. Therefore, traditional morphology-based taxonomy has recurrently failed to reflect evolutionary relationships. While taxonomy ideally should integrate morphology, vocalizations, behaviour, ecology, and genetics, this can be challenging for groups that span several continents including areas that are difficult to access. Here, we combine morphometrics and mitochondrial DNA to evaluate the taxonomy of Calandrella larks, with particular focus on the African C. cinerea and the Asian C. acutirostris complexes. We describe a new range-restricted West African taxon, Calandrella cinerea rufipecta ssp. nov. (type locality: Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria), with an isolated relic population 3000 km from its closest relative in the Rift Valley. We performed molecular species delimitation, employing coalescence-based multi-rate Poisson Tree Processes (mPTP) on cytochrome b sequences across 52 currently recognized lark species, including multiple taxa currently treated as subspecies. Three species-level splits were inferred within the genus Calandrella and another 13 across other genera, primarily among fragmented sub-Saharan taxa and taxa distributed from Northwest Africa to Arabia or East Africa. Previously unknown divergences date back as far as to the Miocene, indicating the presence of currently unrecognized species. However, we stress that taxonomic decisions should not be based on single datasets, such as mitochondrial DNA, although analyses of mitochondrial DNA can be a good indicator of taxa in need of further integrative taxonomic assessment.
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20
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Fordham DA, Jackson ST, Brown SC, Huntley B, Brook BW, Dahl-Jensen D, Gilbert MTP, Otto-Bliesner BL, Svensson A, Theodoridis S, Wilmshurst JM, Buettel JC, Canteri E, McDowell M, Orlando L, Pilowsky J, Rahbek C, Nogues-Bravo D. Using paleo-archives to safeguard biodiversity under climate change. Science 2020; 369:369/6507/eabc5654. [PMID: 32855310 DOI: 10.1126/science.abc5654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2020] [Accepted: 06/30/2020] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Strategies for 21st-century environmental management and conservation under global change require a strong understanding of the biological mechanisms that mediate responses to climate- and human-driven change to successfully mitigate range contractions, extinctions, and the degradation of ecosystem services. Biodiversity responses to past rapid warming events can be followed in situ and over extended periods, using cross-disciplinary approaches that provide cost-effective and scalable information for species' conservation and the maintenance of resilient ecosystems in many bioregions. Beyond the intrinsic knowledge gain such integrative research will increasingly provide the context, tools, and relevant case studies to assist in mitigating climate-driven biodiversity losses in the 21st century and beyond.
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Affiliation(s)
- Damien A Fordham
- The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia. .,Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Stephen T Jackson
- Southwest and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Centers, U.S. Geological Survey, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.,Department of Geosciences and School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
| | - Stuart C Brown
- The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia
| | - Brian Huntley
- Department of Biosciences, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
| | - Barry W Brook
- School of Natural Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
| | - Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
- Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark.,Centre for Earth Observation Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg MB R3T 2N2, Canada
| | - M Thomas P Gilbert
- Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark.,University Museum, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
| | - Bette L Otto-Bliesner
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA
| | - Anders Svensson
- Centre for Ice and Climate, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, 2100 Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Spyros Theodoridis
- Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Janet M Wilmshurst
- Long-Term Ecology Laboratory, Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand.,School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
| | - Jessie C Buettel
- School of Natural Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
| | - Elisabetta Canteri
- The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.,Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Matthew McDowell
- School of Natural Sciences and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
| | - Ludovic Orlando
- Laboratoire d'Anthropobiologie Moléculaire et d'Imagerie de Synthèse UMR 5288, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, France.,Section for GeoGenetics, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Julia Pilowsky
- The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia.,Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
| | - Carsten Rahbek
- Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark.,Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK.,Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.,Institute of Ecology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
| | - David Nogues-Bravo
- Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen Ø 2100, Denmark
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21
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22
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Hublin JJ. Origine et expansion d’Homo sapiens. BULLETIN DE L'ACADÉMIE NATIONALE DE MÉDECINE 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.banm.2019.12.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
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23
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Derouiche L, Irzagh A, Rahmouni R, Tahri R, Hadjeloum M, Bouhadad R, Fernandes C. Deep mitochondrial DNA phylogeographic divergence in the threatened aoudad Ammotragus lervia (Bovidae, Caprini). Gene 2020; 739:144510. [PMID: 32109559 DOI: 10.1016/j.gene.2020.144510] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2019] [Revised: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 02/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The aoudad or Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia) is a threatened ungulate emblematic of North Africa, whose population structure and subspecific taxonomy have not been examined genetically. This knowledge is essential and urgently needed to inform ongoing conservation and management efforts. We analysed the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and four nuclear genes (casein kappa, spectrin beta nonerythrocytic 1, thyroglobulin, thyrotropin subunit beta) for the first phylogeographic survey of the aoudad, and uncovered a deep Mediterranean-Saharan mitochondrial split separating two highly distinct evolutionary lineages. Their level of divergence is greater than or comparable to those observed between several pairs of congeneric species of different caprine genera. The split was estimated to have occurred in the Early Pleistocene, about 1.3 million years ago. None of the four nuclear genes surveyed, chosen because they have been used in phylogeographic and species-level phylogenetic studies of bovids, allowed us to detect, likely due to their slow evolutionary rate, the substantial and geographically coherent subdivision revealed by mitochondrial DNA. This study is evidence and testament to the ability of mitochondrial DNA, probably unrivalled by any other single-locus marker, as an exploratory tool for investigating population genealogy and history and identifying potential evolutionarily significant units for conservation in animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louiza Derouiche
- LBEIG, Population Genetics & Conservation Unit, Faculté des Sciences Biologiques, Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene, BP 32 El-Alia, Bab Ezzouar, 16111, Algiers, Algeria.
| | - Ahmed Irzagh
- Département de Biotechnologie, Faculté des Sciences de la Nature et de la Vie, Université Saad Dahlab de Blida, route de Soumâa, BP 270, 09000 Blida, Algeria
| | - Rafiq Rahmouni
- Réserve de Chasse de Tlemcen, Direction Générale des Forêts (DGF), Boulevard de Lala Sitti, Tlemcen, Algeria
| | | | - Mohamed Hadjeloum
- Bureau de la Gestion et Protection de la Faune, Direction Générale des Forêts (DGF), Algiers, Algeria
| | - Rachid Bouhadad
- LBEIG, Population Genetics & Conservation Unit, Faculté des Sciences Biologiques, Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene, BP 32 El-Alia, Bab Ezzouar, 16111, Algiers, Algeria
| | - Carlos Fernandes
- CE3C - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal.
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24
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The Role of Climate and Topography in Shaping the Diversity of Plant Communities in Cabo Verde Islands. DIVERSITY 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/d12020080] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
The flora and vegetation of the archipelago of Cabo Verde is dominated by Macaronesian, Mediterranean, and particularly by African tropical elements, resulting from its southernmost location, when compared to the other islands of the Macaronesia (i.e., Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, and Canary Islands). Very likely, such a geographical position entailed higher susceptibility to extreme climatic fluctuations, namely those associated with the West African Monsoon oscillations. These fluctuations led to a continuous aridification, which is a clear trend shown by most recent studies based on continental shelf cores. Promoting important environmental shifts, such climatic fluctuations are accepted as determinant to explain the current spatial distribution patterns of taxa, as well as the composition of the plant communities. In this paper, we present a comprehensive characterization of the main plant communities in Cabo Verde, and we discuss the role of the climatic and topoclimatic diversity in shaping the vegetation composition and distribution of this archipelago. Our study reveals a strong variation in the diversity of plant communities across elevation gradients and distinct patterns of richness among plant communities. Moreover, we present an overview of the biogeographical relationships of the Cabo Verde flora and vegetation with the other Macaronesian Islands and northwestern Africa. We discuss how the distribution of plant communities and genetic patterns found among most of the endemic lineages can be related to Africa’s ongoing aridification, exploring the impacts of a process that marks northern Africa from the Late Miocene until the present.
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25
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Adamou AE, Bańbura M, Bańbura J. Subtle differences in breeding performance between Great Tits Parus major and Afrocanarian Blue Tits Cyanistes teneriffae in the peripheral zone of the species geographic ranges in NE Algeria. THE EUROPEAN ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/24750263.2020.1764639] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- A.-E. Adamou
- Équipe Désertification Et Climat, Université Amar Telidji-Laghouat, Laghouat, Algérie
| | - M. Bańbura
- Museum of Natural History, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland
| | - J. Bańbura
- Department of Experimental Zoology and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland
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Trumble BC, Finch CE. THE EXPOSOME IN HUMAN EVOLUTION: FROM DUST TO DIESEL. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 2019; 94:333-394. [PMID: 32269391 PMCID: PMC7141577 DOI: 10.1086/706768] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Global exposures to air pollution and cigarette smoke are novel in human evolutionary history and are associated with about 16 million premature deaths per year. We investigate the history of the human exposome for relationships between novel environmental toxins and genetic changes during human evolution in six phases. Phase I: With increased walking on savannas, early human ancestors inhaled crustal dust, fecal aerosols, and spores; carrion scavenging introduced new infectious pathogens. Phase II: Domestic fire exposed early Homo to novel toxins from smoke and cooking. Phases III and IV: Neolithic to preindustrial Homo sapiens incurred infectious pathogens from domestic animals and dense communities with limited sanitation. Phase V: Industrialization introduced novel toxins from fossil fuels, industrial chemicals, and tobacco at the same time infectious pathogens were diminishing. Thereby, pathogen-driven causes of mortality were replaced by chronic diseases driven by sterile inflammogens, exogenous and endogenous. Phase VI: Considers future health during global warming with increased air pollution and infections. We hypothesize that adaptation to some ancient toxins persists in genetic variations associated with inflammation and longevity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Benjamin C Trumble
- School of Human Evolution & Social Change and Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85287 USA
| | - Caleb E Finch
- Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and Dornsife College, University of Southern California Los Angeles, California 90089-0191 USA
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27
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Lompo D, Vinceti B, Konrad H, Gaisberger H, Geburek T. Phylogeography of African Locust Bean (Parkia biglobosa) Reveals Genetic Divergence and Spatially Structured Populations in West and Central Africa. J Hered 2019; 109:811-824. [PMID: 30247720 PMCID: PMC6208456 DOI: 10.1093/jhered/esy047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2017] [Accepted: 09/20/2018] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
The evolutionary history of African savannah tree species is crucial for the management of their genetic resources. In this study, we investigated the phylogeography of Parkia biglobosa and its modeled distribution under past and present climate conditions. This tree species is very valued and widespread in West Africa, providing edible and medicinal products. A large sample of 1610 individuals from 84 populations, distributed across 12 countries in Western and Central Africa, were genotyped using 8 nuclear microsatellites. Individual-based assignments clearly distinguished 3 genetic clusters, extreme West Africa (EWA), center of West Africa (CWA), and Central Africa (CA). Overall, estimates of genetic diversity were moderate to high, with lower values for populations in EWA (allelic richness after rarefaction [AR] = 6.4, expected heterozygosity [HE] = 0.78, and observed heterozygosity [HO] = 0.7) and CA (AR = 5.9, HE = 0.67, and HO = 0.61) compared with populations in CWA (AR = 7.3, HE = 0.79, and HO = 0.75). The overall population differentiation was found to be moderate (FST = 0.09). A highly significant isolation by distance pattern was detected, with a marked phylogeographic signature suggesting possible effects of past climate and geographic barriers to migration. Modeling the potential distribution of the species showed a contraction during the last glaciations followed by expansion events. The exploratory approximate Bayesian computation conducted suggests a best-supported scenario in which the cluster CWA traced back to the ancestral populations and a first split between EWA and CWA took place about 160000 years before present (BP), then a second split divided CA and CWA, about 100000 years BP. However, our genetic data do not enable us to conclusively distinguish among a few alternative possible scenarios.
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Affiliation(s)
- Djingdia Lompo
- Centre National de Semences Forestières, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
| | | | - Heino Konrad
- Austrian Research and Training Centre for Forests, Department of Forest Genetics, Vienna, Austria
| | | | - Thomas Geburek
- Austrian Research and Training Centre for Forests, Department of Forest Genetics, Vienna, Austria
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Joordens JC, Feibel CS, Vonhof HB, Schulp AS, Kroon D. Relevance of the eastern African coastal forest for early hominin biogeography. J Hum Evol 2019; 131:176-202. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2018] [Revised: 03/10/2019] [Accepted: 03/13/2019] [Indexed: 12/25/2022]
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Malinsky-Buller A, Hovers E. One size does not fit all: Group size and the late middle Pleistocene prehistoric archive. J Hum Evol 2019; 127:118-132. [PMID: 30777353 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2018] [Revised: 11/02/2018] [Accepted: 11/06/2018] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
The role of demography is often suggested to be a key factor in both biological and cultural evolution. Recent research has shown that the linkage between population size and cultural evolution is not straightforward and emerges from the interplay of many demographic, economic, social and ecological variables. Formal modelling has yielded interesting insights into the complex relationship between population structure, intergroup connectedness, and magnitude and extent of population extinctions. Such studies have highlighted the importance of effective (as opposed to census) population size in transmission processes. At the same time, it remained unclear how such insights can be applied to material culture phenomena in the prehistoric record, especially for deeper prehistory. In this paper we approach the issue of population sizes during the time of the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition through the proxy of regional trajectories of lithic technological change, identified in the archaeological records from Africa, the Levant, Southwestern and Northwestern Europe. Our discussion of the results takes into consideration the constraints inherent to the archaeological record of deep time - e.g., preservation bias, time-averaging and the incomplete nature of the archaeological record - and of extrapolation from discrete archaeological case studies to an evolutionary time scale. We suggest that technological trajectories of change over this transitional period reflect the robustness of transmission networks. Our results show differences in the pattern and rate of cultural transmission in these regions, from which we infer that information networks, and their underlying effective population sizes, also differed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ariel Malinsky-Buller
- MONREPOS, Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Schloss Monrepos, 56567, Neuwied, Germany.
| | - Erella Hovers
- The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel; International Affiliate, Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
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Langgut D, Almogi-Labin A, Bar-Matthews M, Pickarski N, Weinstein-Evron M. Evidence for a humid interval at ∼56–44 ka in the Levant and its potential link to modern humans dispersal out of Africa. J Hum Evol 2018; 124:75-90. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2017] [Revised: 08/06/2018] [Accepted: 08/07/2018] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
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Pastoralism may have delayed the end of the green Sahara. Nat Commun 2018; 9:4018. [PMID: 30275473 PMCID: PMC6167352 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06321-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2018] [Revised: 08/23/2018] [Accepted: 08/29/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
The climate deterioration after the most recent African humid period (AHP) is a notable past example of desertification. Evidence points to a human population expansion in northern Africa prior to this, associated with the introduction of pastoralism. Here we consider the role, if any, of this population on the subsequent ecological collapse. Using a climate-vegetation model, we estimate the natural length of the most recent AHP. The model indicates that the system was most susceptible to collapse between 7 and 6 ka; at least 500 years before the observed collapse. This suggests that the inclusion of increasing elements of pastoralism was an effective adaptation to the regional environmental changes. Pastoralism also appears to have slowed the deterioration caused by orbitally-driven climate change. This supports the view that modern pastoralism is not only sustainable, but beneficial for the management of the world's dryland environments.
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Who were the Nataruk people? Mandibular morphology among late Pleistocene and early Holocene fisher-forager populations of West Turkana (Kenya). J Hum Evol 2018; 121:235-253. [PMID: 29857967 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.04.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2017] [Revised: 04/24/2018] [Accepted: 04/25/2018] [Indexed: 01/27/2023]
Abstract
Africa is the birthplace of the species Homo sapiens, and Africans today are genetically more diverse than other populations of the world. However, the processes that underpinned the evolution of African populations remain largely obscure. Only a handful of late Pleistocene African fossils (∼50-12 Ka) are known, while the more numerous sites with human fossils of early Holocene age are patchily distributed. In particular, late Pleistocene and early Holocene human diversity in Eastern Africa remains little studied, precluding any analysis of the potential factors that shaped human diversity in the region, and more broadly throughout the continent. These periods include the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), a moment of extreme aridity in Africa that caused the fragmentation of population ranges and localised extinctions, as well as the 'African Humid Period', a moment of abrupt climate change and enhanced connectivity throughout Africa. East Africa, with its range of environments, may have acted as a refugium during the LGM, and may have played a critical biogeographic role during the heterogene`ous environmental recovery that followed. This environmental context raises a number of questions about the relationships among early Holocene African populations, and about the role played by East Africa in shaping late hunter-gatherer biological diversity. Here, we describe eight mandibles from Nataruk, an early Holocene site (∼10 Ka) in West Turkana, offering the opportunity of exploring population diversity in Africa at the height of the 'African Humid Period'. We use 3D geometric morphometric techniques to analyze the phenotypic variation of a large mandibular sample. Our results show that (i) the Nataruk mandibles are most similar to other African hunter-fisher-gatherer populations, especially to the fossils from Lothagam, another West Turkana locality, and to other early Holocene fossils from the Central Rift Valley (Kenya); and (ii) a phylogenetic connection may have existed between these Eastern African populations and some Nile Valley and Maghrebian groups, who lived at a time when a Green Sahara may have allowed substantial contact, and potential gene flow, across a vast expanse of Northern and Eastern Africa.
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D’Atanasio E, Trombetta B, Bonito M, Finocchio A, Di Vito G, Seghizzi M, Romano R, Russo G, Paganotti GM, Watson E, Coppa A, Anagnostou P, Dugoujon JM, Moral P, Sellitto D, Novelletto A, Cruciani F. The peopling of the last Green Sahara revealed by high-coverage resequencing of trans-Saharan patrilineages. Genome Biol 2018; 19:20. [PMID: 29433568 PMCID: PMC5809971 DOI: 10.1186/s13059-018-1393-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2017] [Accepted: 01/19/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Little is known about the peopling of the Sahara during the Holocene climatic optimum, when the desert was replaced by a fertile environment. RESULTS In order to investigate the role of the last Green Sahara in the peopling of Africa, we deep-sequence the whole non-repetitive portion of the Y chromosome in 104 males selected as representative of haplogroups which are currently found to the north and to the south of the Sahara. We identify 5,966 mutations, from which we extract 142 informative markers then genotyped in about 8,000 subjects from 145 African, Eurasian and African American populations. We find that the coalescence age of the trans-Saharan haplogroups dates back to the last Green Sahara, while most northern African or sub-Saharan clades expanded locally in the subsequent arid phase. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that the Green Sahara promoted human movements and demographic expansions, possibly linked to the adoption of pastoralism. Comparing our results with previously reported genome-wide data, we also find evidence for a sex-biased sub-Saharan contribution to northern Africans, suggesting that historical events such as the trans-Saharan slave trade mainly contributed to the mtDNA and autosomal gene pool, whereas the northern African paternal gene pool was mainly shaped by more ancient events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eugenia D’Atanasio
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Istituto Pasteur-Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Beniamino Trombetta
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Maria Bonito
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Andrea Finocchio
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
| | - Genny Di Vito
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Mara Seghizzi
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Rita Romano
- Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica e Malattie Infettive, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Gianluca Russo
- Dipartimento di Sanità Pubblica e Malattie Infettive, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Giacomo Maria Paganotti
- Botswana-University of Pennsylvania Partnership, Gaborone, Botswana
- Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA
| | | | - Alfredo Coppa
- Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
| | - Paolo Anagnostou
- Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Istituto Italiano di Antropologia, Rome, Italy
| | - Jean-Michel Dugoujon
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Toulouse-3–Paul-Sabatier, Toulouse, France
| | - Pedro Moral
- Department of Animal Biology-Anthropology, Biodiversity Research Institute, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
| | | | - Andrea Novelletto
- Dipartimento di Biologia, Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy
| | - Fulvio Cruciani
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “C. Darwin”, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy
- Istituto di Biologia e Patologia Molecolari, CNR, Rome, Italy
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Elkamel S, Boussetta S, Khodjet-El-Khil H, Benammar Elgaaied A, Cherni L. Ancient and recent Middle Eastern maternal genetic contribution to North Africa as viewed by mtDNA diversity in Tunisian Arab populations. Am J Hum Biol 2018; 30:e23100. [PMID: 29359455 DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.23100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2016] [Revised: 12/06/2017] [Accepted: 12/29/2017] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVES Through previous mitochondrial DNA studies, the Middle Eastern maternal genetic contribution to Tunisian populations appears limited. In fact, most of the studied communities were cosmopolitan, or of Berber or Andalusian origin. To provide genetic evidence for the actual contribution of Middle Eastern mtDNA lineages to Tunisia, we focused on two Arab speaking populations from Kairouan and Wesletia known to belong to an Arab genealogical lineage. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 114 samples were sequenced for the mtDNA HVS-I and HVS-II regions. Using these data, we evaluated the distribution of Middle Eastern haplogroups in the study populations, constructed interpolation maps, and established phylogenetic networks allowing estimation of the coalescence time for three specific Middle Eastern subclades (R0a, J1b, and T1). RESULTS Both studied populations displayed North African genetic structure and Middle Eastern lineages with a frequency of 12% and 28.12% in Kairouan and Wesletia, respectively. TMRCA estimates for haplogroups T1a, R0a, and J1b in Tunisian Arabian samples were around 15 000 YBP, 9000 to 5000 YBP, and 960 to 600 YBP, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The Middle Eastern maternal genetic contribution to Tunisian populations, as to other North African populations, occurred mostly in deep prehistory. They were brought in different migration waves during the Upper Paleolithic, probably with the expansion of Iberomaurusian culture, and during Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic periods, which are concomitant with the Capsian civilization. Middle Eastern lineages also came to Tunisia during the recent Islamic expansion of the 7th CE and the subsequent massive Bedouin migration during the 11th CE.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarra Elkamel
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis, 2092, Tunisia
| | - Sami Boussetta
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis, 2092, Tunisia
| | - Houssein Khodjet-El-Khil
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis, 2092, Tunisia
| | - Amel Benammar Elgaaied
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis, 2092, Tunisia
| | - Lotfi Cherni
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté des Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis, 2092, Tunisia.,High Institute of Biotechnology, University of Monastir, Monastir, 5000, Tunisia
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35
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Lamb HF, Bates CR, Bryant CL, Davies SJ, Huws DG, Marshall MH, Roberts HM, Toland H. 150,000-year palaeoclimate record from northern Ethiopia supports early, multiple dispersals of modern humans from Africa. Sci Rep 2018; 8:1077. [PMID: 29348464 PMCID: PMC5773494 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-19601-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/17/2017] [Accepted: 01/02/2018] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Climatic change is widely acknowledged to have played a role in the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, but the timing is contentious. Genetic evidence links dispersal to climatic change ~60,000 years ago, despite increasing evidence for earlier modern human presence in Asia. We report a deep seismic and near-continuous core record of the last 150,000 years from Lake Tana, Ethiopia, close to early modern human fossil sites and to postulated dispersal routes. The record shows varied climate towards the end of the penultimate glacial, followed by an abrupt change to relatively stable moist climate during the last interglacial. These conditions could have favoured selection for behavioural versatility, population growth and range expansion, supporting models of early, multiple dispersals of modern humans from Africa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henry F Lamb
- Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK.
| | - C Richard Bates
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Irvine Building, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9AL, UK
| | - Charlotte L Bryant
- NERC Radiocarbon Facility, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride, G75 0QF, UK
| | - Sarah J Davies
- Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK
| | - Dei G Huws
- School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, LL59 5AB, UK
| | - Michael H Marshall
- Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK.,West Park School, West Road, Spondon, Derby, DE21 7BT, UK
| | - Helen M Roberts
- Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK
| | - Harry Toland
- Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK
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Bilton DT, Ribera I. A revision of Meladema diving beetles (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae), with the description of a new species from the central Mediterranean based on molecules and morphology. Zookeys 2017; 702:45-112. [PMID: 29118600 PMCID: PMC5673946 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.702.14787] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2017] [Accepted: 08/23/2017] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Meladema Laporte, 1835 are relatively large, stream-dwelling diving beetles, distributed widely in the Western Palaearctic, from the Atlantic Islands to Turkey, and from southern France and the Balkans to the central Sahara. In addition to the three previously recognised taxa (M. coriacea Laporte, 1835, M. imbricata (Wollaston, 1871) and M. lanio (Fabricius, 1775)) we describe a new, cryptic, species from the central Mediterranean area, which can be distinguished from M. coriacea on both DNA sequence data and morphology, and provide a key to known species of the genus. Based on the study of genotyped material, both recent and archival, as well as the examination of a large number of museum specimens, we show that M. lepidopterasp. n. occurs to the apparent exclusion of M. coriacea on Corsica, Sardinia and islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, but that both taxa are found in peninsular Italy, where they may occasionally hybridize. In the absence of the original type series, we designate a neotype for M. coriacea, and take the opportunity to designate a lectotype for M. lanio. Morphological variation in Meladema species is discussed, including that seen in known and presumed hybrids. Our study highlights the incomplete state of knowledge of Mediterranean biodiversity, even in relatively large, supposedly well-studied taxa.
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Affiliation(s)
- David T. Bilton
- Marine Biology and Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
| | - Ignacio Ribera
- Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-49, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
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End-member modelling as a tool for climate reconstruction-An Eastern Mediterranean case study. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0185136. [PMID: 28934332 PMCID: PMC5608325 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185136] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2017] [Accepted: 09/05/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The Eastern Mediterranean Sea is a sink for terrigenous sediments from North Africa, Europe and Asia Minor. Its sediments therefore provide valuable information on the climate dynamics in the source areas and the associated transport processes. We present a high-resolution dataset of sediment core M40/4_SL71, which was collected SW of Crete and spans the last ca. 180 kyr. We analysed the clay mineral composition, the grain size distribution within the silt fraction, and the abundance of major and trace elements. We tested the potential of end-member modelling on these sedimentological datasets as a tool for reconstructing the climate variability in the source regions and the associated detrital input. For each dataset, we modelled three end members. All end members were assigned to a specific provenance and sedimentary process. In total, three end members were related to the Saharan dust input, and five were related to the fluvial sediment input. One end member was strongly associated with the sapropel layers. The Saharan dust end members of the grain size and clay mineral datasets generally suggest enhanced dust export into the Eastern Mediterranean Sea during the dry phases with short-term increases during Heinrich events. During the African Humid Periods, dust export was reduced but may not have completely ceased. The loading patterns of two fluvial end members show a strong relationship with the Northern Hemisphere insolation, and all fluvial end members document enhanced input during the African Humid Periods. The sapropel end member most likely reflects the fixation of redox-sensitive elements within the anoxic sapropel layers. Our results exemplify that end-member modelling is a valuable tool for interpreting extensive and multidisciplinary datasets.
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Böhme M, Spassov N, Ebner M, Geraads D, Hristova L, Kirscher U, Kötter S, Linnemann U, Prieto J, Roussiakis S, Theodorou G, Uhlig G, Winklhofer M. Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0177347. [PMID: 28531204 PMCID: PMC5439672 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177347] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2016] [Accepted: 04/26/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Dating fossil hominids and reconstructing their environments is critically important for understanding human evolution. Here we date the potentially oldest hominin, Graecopithecus freybergi from Europe and constrain the environmental conditions under which it thrived. For the Graecopithecus-bearing Pikermi Formation of Attica/Greece, a saline aeolian dust deposit of North African (Sahara) provenance, we obtain an age of 7.37-7.11 Ma, which is coeval with a dramatic cooling in the Mediterranean region at the Tortonian-Messinian transition. Palaeobotanic proxies demonstrate C4-grass dominated wooded grassland-to-woodland habitats of a savannah biome for the Pikermi Formation. Faunal turnover at the Tortonian-Messinian transition led to the spread of new mammalian taxa along with Graecopithecus into Europe. The type mandible of G. freybergi from Pyrgos (7.175 Ma) and the single tooth (7.24 Ma) from Azmaka (Bulgaria) represent the first hominids of Messinian age from continental Europe. Our results suggest that major splits in the hominid family occurred outside Africa.
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Affiliation(s)
- Madelaine Böhme
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
- Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Tübingen, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Nikolai Spassov
- National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
| | - Martin Ebner
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
| | - Denis Geraads
- CR2P (UMR 7207), Sorbonne Universités, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CP 38, Paris, France
- Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Latinka Hristova
- National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria
| | - Uwe Kirscher
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geophysics, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
| | - Sabine Kötter
- Department of Geosciences, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
- Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Ulf Linnemann
- Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, Museum of Mineralogy and Geology, GeoPlasmaLab, Dresden, Germany
| | - Jérôme Prieto
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Palaeontology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
| | - Socrates Roussiakis
- Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
| | - George Theodorou
- Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
| | - Gregor Uhlig
- Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Michael Winklhofer
- School of Mathematics and Science, Institute of Biology and Environmental Science, University of Oldenburg, Germany
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Ehrmann W, Schmiedl G, Beuscher S, Krüger S. Intensity of African Humid Periods Estimated from Saharan Dust Fluxes. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0170989. [PMID: 28129378 PMCID: PMC5271358 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170989] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2016] [Accepted: 01/13/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
North Africa experienced dramatic changes in hydrology and vegetation during the late Quaternary driven by insolation-induced shifts of the tropical rain belt and further modulated by millennial-scale droughts and vegetation-climate feedbacks. While most past proxy and modelling studies concentrated on the temporal and spatial dynamics of the last African humid period, little is known about the intensities and characteristics of pre-Holocene humid periods. Here we present a high-resolution record of fine-grained eastern Saharan dust from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea spanning the last 180 kyr, which is based on the clay mineral composition of the marine sediments, especially the kaolinite/chlorite ratio. Minimum aeolian kaolinite transport occurred during the African Humid Periods because kaolinite deflation was hampered by increased humidity and vegetation cover. Instead, kaolinite weathering from kaolinite-bearing Cenozoic rocks was stored in lake basins, river beds and soils during these periods. During the subsequent dry phases, fine-grained dust was mobilised from the desiccated lakes, rivers and soils resulting in maximum aeolian uptake and transport of kaolinite. The kaolinite transport decreased again when these sediment sources exhausted. We conclude that the amount of clay-sized dust blown out of the Sahara into the Eastern Mediterranean Sea is proportional to the intensity of the kaolinite weathering and accumulation in soils and lake sediments, and thus to the strength of the preceding humid period. These humid periods provided the windows for the migration of modern humans out of Africa, as postulated previously. The strongest humid period occurred during the Eemian and was followed by two weaker phases centred at ca. 100 ka and ca. 80 ka.
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Affiliation(s)
- Werner Ehrmann
- Institut für Geophysik und Geologie, Universität Leipzig, Talstraße 35, Leipzig, Germany
- * E-mail:
| | - Gerhard Schmiedl
- Centrum für Erdsystemforschung und Nachhaltigkeit, Universität Hamburg, Bundesstraße 55, Hamburg, Germany
| | - Sarah Beuscher
- Institut für Geophysik und Geologie, Universität Leipzig, Talstraße 35, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Stefan Krüger
- Institut für Geophysik und Geologie, Universität Leipzig, Talstraße 35, Leipzig, Germany
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Haber M, Mezzavilla M, Bergström A, Prado-Martinez J, Hallast P, Saif-Ali R, Al-Habori M, Dedoussis G, Zeggini E, Blue-Smith J, Wells R, Xue Y, Zalloua P, Tyler-Smith C. Chad Genetic Diversity Reveals an African History Marked by Multiple Holocene Eurasian Migrations. Am J Hum Genet 2016; 99:1316-1324. [PMID: 27889059 PMCID: PMC5142112 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.10.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2016] [Accepted: 10/24/2016] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding human genetic diversity in Africa is important for interpreting the evolution of all humans, yet vast regions in Africa, such as Chad, remain genetically poorly investigated. Here, we use genotype data from 480 samples from Chad, the Near East, and southern Europe, as well as whole-genome sequencing from 19 of them, to show that many populations today derive their genomes from ancient African-Eurasian admixtures. We found evidence of early Eurasian backflow to Africa in people speaking the unclassified isolate Laal language in southern Chad and estimate from linkage-disequilibrium decay that this occurred 4,750–7,200 years ago. It brought to Africa a Y chromosome lineage (R1b-V88) whose closest relatives are widespread in present-day Eurasia; we estimate from sequence data that the Chad R1b-V88 Y chromosomes coalesced 5,700–7,300 years ago. This migration could thus have originated among Near Eastern farmers during the African Humid Period. We also found that the previously documented Eurasian backflow into Africa, which occurred ∼3,000 years ago and was thought to be mostly limited to East Africa, had a more westward impact affecting populations in northern Chad, such as the Toubou, who have 20%–30% Eurasian ancestry today. We observed a decline in heterozygosity in admixed Africans and found that the Eurasian admixture can bias inferences on their coalescent history and confound genetic signals from adaptation and archaic introgression.
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Timmermann A, Friedrich T. Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human migration. Nature 2016; 538:92-95. [PMID: 27654920 DOI: 10.1038/nature19365] [Citation(s) in RCA: 90] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2016] [Accepted: 08/12/2016] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
On the basis of fossil and archaeological data it has been hypothesized that the exodus of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Eurasia between ~50-120 thousand years ago occurred in several orbitally paced migration episodes. Crossing vegetated pluvial corridors from northeastern Africa into the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant and expanding further into Eurasia, Australia and the Americas, early H. sapiens experienced massive time-varying climate and sea level conditions on a variety of timescales. Hitherto it has remained difficult to quantify the effect of glacial- and millennial-scale climate variability on early human dispersal and evolution. Here we present results from a numerical human dispersal model, which is forced by spatiotemporal estimates of climate and sea level changes over the past 125 thousand years. The model simulates the overall dispersal of H. sapiens in close agreement with archaeological and fossil data and features prominent glacial migration waves across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant region around 106-94, 89-73, 59-47 and 45-29 thousand years ago. The findings document that orbital-scale global climate swings played a key role in shaping Late Pleistocene global population distributions, whereas millennial-scale abrupt climate changes, associated with Dansgaard-Oeschger events, had a more limited regional effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Axel Timmermann
- International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.,Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
| | - Tobias Friedrich
- International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
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Mirazón Lahr M. The shaping of human diversity: filters, boundaries and transitions. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2016; 371:20150241. [PMID: 27298471 PMCID: PMC4920297 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/25/2016] [Indexed: 01/21/2023] Open
Abstract
The evolution of modern humans was a complex process, involving major changes in levels of diversity through time. The fossils and stone tools that record the spatial distribution of our species in the past form the backbone of our evolutionary history, and one that allows us to explore the different processes-cultural and biological-that acted to shape the evolution of different populations in the face of major climate change. Those processes created a complex palimpsest of similarities and differences, with outcomes that were at times accelerated by sharp demographic and geographical fluctuations. The result is that the population ancestral to all modern humans did not look or behave like people alive today. This has generated questions regarding the evolution of human universal characters, as well as the nature and timing of major evolutionary events in the history of Homo sapiens The paucity of African fossils remains a serious stumbling block for exploring some of these issues. However, fossil and archaeological discoveries increasingly clarify important aspects of our past, while breakthroughs from genomics and palaeogenomics have revealed aspects of the demography of Late Quaternary Eurasian hominin groups and their interactions, as well as those between foragers and farmers. This paper explores the nature and timing of key moments in the evolution of human diversity, moments in which population collapse followed by differential expansion of groups set the conditions for transitional periods. Five transitions are identified (i) at the origins of the species, 240-200 ka; (ii) at the time of the first major expansions, 130-100 ka; (iii) during a period of dispersals, 70-50 ka; (iv) across a phase of local/regional structuring of diversity, 45-25 ka; and (v) during a phase of significant extinction of hunter-gatherer diversity and expansion of particular groups, such as farmers and later societies (the Holocene Filter), 15-0 ka.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marta Mirazón Lahr
- Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK
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Rose C, Polissar PJ, Tierney JE, Filley T, deMenocal PB. Changes in northeast African hydrology and vegetation associated with Pliocene-Pleistocene sapropel cycles. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2016; 371:20150243. [PMID: 27298473 PMCID: PMC4920299 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/22/2016] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
East African climate change since the Late Miocene consisted of persistent shorter-term, orbital-scale wet-dry cycles superimposed upon a long-term trend towards more open, grassy landscapes. Either or both of these modes of palaeoclimate variability may have influenced East African mammalian evolution, yet the interrelationship between these secular and orbital palaeoclimate signals remains poorly understood. Here, we explore whether the long-term secular climate change was also accompanied by significant changes at the orbital-scale. We develop northeast African hydroclimate and vegetation proxy data for two 100 kyr-duration windows near 3.05 and 1.75 Ma at ODP Site 967 in the eastern Mediterranean basin, where sedimentation is dominated by eastern Sahara dust input and Nile River run-off. These two windows were selected because they have comparable orbital configurations and bracket an important increase in East African C4 grasslands. We conducted high-resolution (2.5 kyr sampling) multiproxy biomarker, H- and C-isotopic analyses of plant waxes and lignin phenols to document orbital-scale changes in hydrology, vegetation and woody cover for these two intervals. Both intervals are dominated by large-amplitude, precession-scale (approx. 20 kyr) changes in northeast African vegetation and rainfall/run-off. The δ(13)Cwax values and lignin phenol composition record a variable but consistently C4 grass-dominated ecosystem for both intervals (50-80% C4). Precessional δDwax cycles were approximately 20-30‰ in peak-to-peak amplitude, comparable with other δDwax records of the Early Holocene African Humid Period. There were no significant differences in the means or variances of the δDwax or δ(13)Cwax data for the 3.05 and 1.75 Ma intervals studied, suggesting that the palaeohydrology and palaeovegetation responses to precessional forcing were similar for these two periods. Data for these two windows suggest that the eastern Sahara did not experience the significant increase in C4 vegetation that has been observed in East Africa over this time period. This observation would be consistent with a proposed mechanism whereby East African precipitation is reduced, and drier conditions established, in response to the emergence of modern zonal sea surface temperature gradients in the tropical oceans between 3 and 2 Ma.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassaundra Rose
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
| | - Pratigya J Polissar
- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA
| | - Jessica E Tierney
- Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
| | - Timothy Filley
- Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The Purdue Climate Change Research Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
| | - Peter B deMenocal
- Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA
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Gibert L, Scott GR, Scholz D, Budsky A, Ferràndez C, Ribot F, Martin RA, Lería M. Chronology for the Cueva Victoria fossil site (SE Spain): Evidence for Early Pleistocene Afro-Iberian dispersals. J Hum Evol 2016; 90:183-97. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2014] [Revised: 08/12/2015] [Accepted: 08/13/2015] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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Skonieczny C, Paillou P, Bory A, Bayon G, Biscara L, Crosta X, Eynaud F, Malaizé B, Revel M, Aleman N, Barusseau JP, Vernet R, Lopez S, Grousset F. African humid periods triggered the reactivation of a large river system in Western Sahara. Nat Commun 2015; 6:8751. [PMID: 26556052 PMCID: PMC4659928 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9751] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/29/2015] [Accepted: 09/28/2015] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
The Sahara experienced several humid episodes during the late Quaternary, associated with the development of vast fluvial networks and enhanced freshwater delivery to the surrounding ocean margins. In particular, marine sediment records off Western Sahara indicate deposition of river-borne material at those times, implying sustained fluvial discharges along the West African margin. Today, however, no major river exists in this area; therefore, the origin of these sediments remains unclear. Here, using orbital radar satellite imagery, we present geomorphological data that reveal the existence of a large buried paleodrainage network on the Mauritanian coast. On the basis of evidence from the literature, we propose that reactivation of this major paleoriver during past humid periods contributed to the delivery of sediments to the Tropical Atlantic margin. This finding provides new insights for the interpretation of terrigenous sediment records off Western Africa, with important implications for our understanding of the paleohydrological history of the Sahara. Given the absence of a major river system in the Western Sahara, the source of late Quaternary fluvial sediments along the West African margin remains unclear. Here, the authors present geomorphological data that reveal the existence of a large buried paleodrainage network on the Mauritanian coast.
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Affiliation(s)
- C Skonieczny
- IFREMER, Unité de Recherche Géosciences Marines, Z.I. Pointe du diable, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané, France.,Université de Lille, CNRS, Université du Littoral Cote d'Opale, UMR8187, LOG, Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences, F-59000 Lille, France
| | - P Paillou
- LAB, UMR CNRS 5804, Université de Bordeaux, 32271 Floirac, France
| | - A Bory
- Université de Lille, CNRS, Université du Littoral Cote d'Opale, UMR8187, LOG, Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences, F-59000 Lille, France
| | - G Bayon
- IFREMER, Unité de Recherche Géosciences Marines, Z.I. Pointe du diable, BP 70, 29280 Plouzané, France.,Royal Museum for Central Africa, Department of Earth Sciences, 3080 Tervuren, Belgium
| | | | - X Crosta
- EPOC, UMR CNRS 5805, Université Bordeaux, 33615 Talence, France
| | - F Eynaud
- EPOC, UMR CNRS 5805, Université Bordeaux, 33615 Talence, France
| | - B Malaizé
- EPOC, UMR CNRS 5805, Université Bordeaux, 33615 Talence, France
| | - M Revel
- GEOAZUR, UMR CNRS 7329, Université de Nice-Sofia-Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne, France
| | - N Aleman
- CEFREM, Université Via Domitia, 66860 Perpignan, France
| | - J-P Barusseau
- CEFREM, Université Via Domitia, 66860 Perpignan, France
| | - R Vernet
- IMRS, BP 5055 Nouakchott, Mauritania
| | - S Lopez
- LAB, UMR CNRS 5804, Université de Bordeaux, 32271 Floirac, France
| | - F Grousset
- EPOC, UMR CNRS 5805, Université Bordeaux, 33615 Talence, France
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Abstract
Australopithecus bahrelghazali, its origin and palaeobiology are not well understood. Reported from only one location some several thousand kilometres away from East African Pliocene hominin sites, it appears to have predominantly fed on C4 sources. Yet, it lacks the morphological adaptations of other primate C4 consumers like Paranthropus boisei and Theropithecus oswaldi. Furthermore, although considered to belong to Australopithecus afarensis by most researchers, A. bahrelghazali appears to differ from the former in a key aspect of its morphology: enamel thickness. To assess the phylogeny and palaeobiology of A. bahrelghazali, I first evaluate the dietary adaptations and energetics of A. bahrelghazali using empirical data of the feeding ecology of extant baboons, Papio cynocephalus. Information published on A. bahrelghazali morphology and habitat preference is used to select C4 foods with the appropriate mechanical properties and availability within the environment to create the models. By altering the feeding time on various food categories, I then test whether A. bahrelghazali could have subsisted on a C4 diet, thus accounting for the δ(13)C composition of its dental tissue. The effects of body mass on the volume of food consumed are taken into account. The outcomes of these simulations indicate that A. bahrelghazali could have subsisted on a diet of predominantly sedges, albeit with limitations. At higher energy requirements, i.e., above 3.5 times the BMR, it would be difficult for a medium-sized primate to obtain sufficient energy from a sedge-based diet. This is apparently due to constraints on foraging/feeding time, not because of the nutritional value of sedges per se. These results are discussed against the backdrop of A. bahrelghazali biogeography, palaeoenvironment, and phylogeny. The combined evidence makes it plausible to suggest that Northern Chad may have been a refugium for migrating mammals, including hominins, and throws new light on the deep history of A. bahrelghazali.
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Fregel R, Cabrera V, Larruga JM, Abu-Amero KK, González AM. Carriers of Mitochondrial DNA Macrohaplogroup N Lineages Reached Australia around 50,000 Years Ago following a Northern Asian Route. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0129839. [PMID: 26053380 PMCID: PMC4460043 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129839] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2014] [Accepted: 05/13/2015] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Background The modern human colonization of Eurasia and Australia is mostly explained by a single-out-of-Africa exit following a southern coastal route throughout Arabia and India. However, dispersal across the Levant would better explain the introgression with Neanderthals, and more than one exit would fit better with the different ancient genomic components discovered in indigenous Australians and in ancient Europeans. The existence of an additional Northern route used by modern humans to reach Australia was previously deduced from the phylogeography of mtDNA macrohaplogroup N. Here, we present new mtDNA data and new multidisciplinary information that add more support to this northern route. Methods MtDNA hypervariable segments and haplogroup diagnostic coding positions were analyzed in 2,278 Saudi Arabs, from which 1,725 are new samples. Besides, we used 623 published mtDNA genomes belonging to macrohaplogroup N, but not R, to build updated phylogenetic trees to calculate their coalescence ages, and more than 70,000 partial mtDNA sequences were screened to establish their respective geographic ranges. Results The Saudi mtDNA profile confirms the absence of autochthonous mtDNA lineages in Arabia with coalescence ages deep enough to support population continuity in the region since the out-of-Africa episode. In contrast to Australia, where N(xR) haplogroups are found in high frequency and with deep coalescence ages, there are not autochthonous N(xR) lineages in India nor N(xR) branches with coalescence ages as deep as those found in Australia. These patterns are at odds with the supposition that Australian colonizers harboring N(xR) lineages used a route involving India as a stage. The most ancient N(xR) lineages in Eurasia are found in China, and inconsistently with the coastal route, N(xR) haplogroups with the southernmost geographical range have all more recent radiations than the Australians. Conclusions Apart from a single migration event via a southern route, phylogeny and phylogeography of N(xR) lineages support that people carrying mtDNA N lineages could have reach Australia following a northern route through Asia. Data from other disciplines also support this scenario.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosa Fregel
- Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- * E-mail:
| | - Vicente Cabrera
- Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Jose M. Larruga
- Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
| | - Khaled K. Abu-Amero
- Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Ana M. González
- Departamento de Genética, Facultad de Biología, Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
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Stervander M, Illera JC, Kvist L, Barbosa P, Keehnen NP, Pruisscher P, Bensch S, Hansson B. Disentangling the complex evolutionary history of the Western Palearctic blue tits (Cyanistes spp.) - phylogenomic analyses suggest radiation by multiple colonization events and subsequent isolation. Mol Ecol 2015; 24:2477-94. [PMID: 25753616 DOI: 10.1111/mec.13145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/03/2014] [Revised: 02/20/2015] [Accepted: 02/25/2015] [Indexed: 01/16/2023]
Abstract
Isolated islands and their often unique biota continue to play key roles for understanding the importance of drift, genetic variation and adaptation in the process of population differentiation and speciation. One island system that has inspired and intrigued evolutionary biologists is the blue tit complex (Cyanistes spp.) in Europe and Africa, in particular the complex evolutionary history of the multiple genetically distinct taxa of the Canary Islands. Understanding Afrocanarian colonization events is of particular importance because of recent unconventional suggestions that these island populations acted as source of the widespread population in mainland Africa. We investigated the relationship between mainland and island blue tits using a combination of Sanger sequencing at a population level (20 loci; 12 500 nucleotides) and next-generation sequencing of single population representatives (>3 200 000 nucleotides), analysed in coalescence and phylogenetic frameworks. We found (i) that Afrocanarian blue tits are monophyletic and represent four major clades, (ii) that the blue tit complex has a continental origin and that the Canary Islands were colonized three times, (iii) that all island populations have low genetic variation, indicating low long-term effective population sizes and (iv) that populations on La Palma and in Libya represent relicts of an ancestral North African population. Further, demographic reconstructions revealed (v) that the Canary Islands, conforming to traditional views, hold sink populations, which have not served as source for back colonization of the African mainland. Our study demonstrates the importance of complete taxon sampling and an extensive multimarker study design to obtain robust phylogeographical inferences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Stervander
- Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab, Department of Biology, Lund University, Ecology Building, 223 62, Lund, Sweden
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Maslin MA, Shultz S, Trauth MH. A synthesis of the theories and concepts of early human evolution. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2015; 370:20140064. [PMID: 25602068 PMCID: PMC4305165 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2014.0064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 37] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Current evidence suggests that many of the major events in hominin evolution occurred in East Africa. Hence, over the past two decades, there has been intensive work undertaken to understand African palaeoclimate and tectonics in order to put together a coherent picture of how the environment of Africa has varied over the past 10 Myr. A new consensus is emerging that suggests the unusual geology and climate of East Africa created a complex, environmentally very variable setting. This new understanding of East African climate has led to the pulsed climate variability hypothesis that suggests the long-term drying trend in East Africa was punctuated by episodes of short alternating periods of extreme humidity and aridity which may have driven hominin speciation, encephalization and dispersals out of Africa. This hypothesis is unique as it provides a conceptual framework within which other evolutionary theories can be examined: first, at macro-scale comparing phylogenetic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium; second, at a more focused level of human evolution comparing allopatric speciation, aridity hypothesis, turnover pulse hypothesis, variability selection hypothesis, Red Queen hypothesis and sympatric speciation based on sexual selection. It is proposed that each one of these mechanisms may have been acting on hominins during these short periods of climate variability, which then produce a range of different traits that led to the emergence of new species. In the case of Homo erectus (sensu lato), it is not just brain size that changes but life history (shortened inter-birth intervals, delayed development), body size and dimorphism, shoulder morphology to allow thrown projectiles, adaptation to long-distance running, ecological flexibility and social behaviour. The future of evolutionary research should be to create evidence-based meta-narratives, which encompass multiple mechanisms that select for different traits leading ultimately to speciation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark A Maslin
- Department of Geography, University College London, Pearson Building, Gower Street, London, UK
| | - Susanne Shultz
- Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
| | - Martin H Trauth
- University of Potsdam, Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, Karl-Liebknecht-Street 24-25, Potsdam 14476, Germany
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50
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Aridification of the Sahara desert caused by Tethys Sea shrinkage during the Late Miocene. Nature 2014; 513:401-4. [PMID: 25230661 DOI: 10.1038/nature13705] [Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2014] [Accepted: 07/21/2014] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
It is widely believed that the Sahara desert is no more than ∼2-3 million years (Myr) old, with geological evidence showing a remarkable aridification of north Africa at the onset of the Quaternary ice ages. Before that time, north African aridity was mainly controlled by the African summer monsoon (ASM), which oscillated with Earth's orbital precession cycles. Afterwards, the Northern Hemisphere glaciation added an ice volume forcing on the ASM, which additionally oscillated with glacial-interglacial cycles. These findings led to the idea that the Sahara desert came into existence when the Northern Hemisphere glaciated ∼2-3 Myr ago. The later discovery, however, of aeolian dune deposits ∼7 Myr old suggested a much older age, although this interpretation is hotly challenged and there is no clear mechanism for aridification around this time. Here we use climate model simulations to identify the Tortonian stage (∼7-11 Myr ago) of the Late Miocene epoch as the pivotal period for triggering north African aridity and creating the Sahara desert. Through a set of experiments with the Norwegian Earth System Model and the Community Atmosphere Model, we demonstrate that the African summer monsoon was drastically weakened by the Tethys Sea shrinkage during the Tortonian, allowing arid, desert conditions to expand across north Africa. Not only did the Tethys shrinkage alter the mean climate of the region, it also enhanced the sensitivity of the African monsoon to orbital forcing, which subsequently became the major driver of Sahara extent fluctuations. These important climatic changes probably caused the shifts in Asian and African flora and fauna observed during the same period, with possible links to the emergence of early hominins in north Africa.
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