Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Million-year-old DNA sheds light on the genomic history of mammoths

van der Valk, Tom ; Pečnerová, Patrícia LU orcid ; Díez-Del-Molino, David ; Bergström, Anders ; Oppenheimer, Jonas ; Hartmann, Stefanie ; Xenikoudakis, Georgios ; Thomas, Jessica A ; Dehasque, Marianne and Sağlıcan, Ekin , et al. (2021) In Nature 591(7849). p.265-269
Abstract

Temporal genomic data hold great potential for studying evolutionary processes such as speciation. However, sampling across speciation events would, in many cases, require genomic time series that stretch well back into the Early Pleistocene subepoch. Although theoretical models suggest that DNA should survive on this timescale1, the oldest genomic data recovered so far are from a horse specimen dated to 780-560 thousand years ago2. Here we report the recovery of genome-wide data from three mammoth specimens dating to the Early and Middle Pleistocene subepochs, two of which are more than one million years old. We find that two distinct mammoth lineages were present in eastern Siberia during the Early Pleistocene. One of these lineages... (More)

Temporal genomic data hold great potential for studying evolutionary processes such as speciation. However, sampling across speciation events would, in many cases, require genomic time series that stretch well back into the Early Pleistocene subepoch. Although theoretical models suggest that DNA should survive on this timescale1, the oldest genomic data recovered so far are from a horse specimen dated to 780-560 thousand years ago2. Here we report the recovery of genome-wide data from three mammoth specimens dating to the Early and Middle Pleistocene subepochs, two of which are more than one million years old. We find that two distinct mammoth lineages were present in eastern Siberia during the Early Pleistocene. One of these lineages gave rise to the woolly mammoth and the other represents a previously unrecognized lineage that was ancestral to the first mammoths to colonize North America. Our analyses reveal that the Columbian mammoth of North America traces its ancestry to a Middle Pleistocene hybridization between these two lineages, with roughly equal admixture proportions. Finally, we show that the majority of protein-coding changes associated with cold adaptation in woolly mammoths were already present one million years ago. These findings highlight the potential of deep-time palaeogenomics to expand our understanding of speciation and long-term adaptive evolution.

(Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and , et al. (More)
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and (Less)
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
keywords
Acclimatization/genetics, Alleles, Animals, Bayes Theorem, DNA, Ancient/analysis, Elephants/genetics, Europe, Evolution, Molecular, Female, Fossils, Genetic Variation/genetics, Genome, Mitochondrial/genetics, Genomics, Mammoths/genetics, Markov Chains, Molar, North America, Phylogeny, Radiometric Dating, Siberia, Time Factors
in
Nature
volume
591
issue
7849
pages
5 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:85101187658
  • pmid:33597750
ISSN
0028-0836
DOI
10.1038/s41586-021-03224-9
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
1ca75911-ed17-4840-a24b-97796aa78c99
date added to LUP
2024-10-10 15:57:53
date last changed
2025-07-05 17:19:14
@article{1ca75911-ed17-4840-a24b-97796aa78c99,
  abstract     = {{<p>Temporal genomic data hold great potential for studying evolutionary processes such as speciation. However, sampling across speciation events would, in many cases, require genomic time series that stretch well back into the Early Pleistocene subepoch. Although theoretical models suggest that DNA should survive on this timescale1, the oldest genomic data recovered so far are from a horse specimen dated to 780-560 thousand years ago2. Here we report the recovery of genome-wide data from three mammoth specimens dating to the Early and Middle Pleistocene subepochs, two of which are more than one million years old. We find that two distinct mammoth lineages were present in eastern Siberia during the Early Pleistocene. One of these lineages gave rise to the woolly mammoth and the other represents a previously unrecognized lineage that was ancestral to the first mammoths to colonize North America. Our analyses reveal that the Columbian mammoth of North America traces its ancestry to a Middle Pleistocene hybridization between these two lineages, with roughly equal admixture proportions. Finally, we show that the majority of protein-coding changes associated with cold adaptation in woolly mammoths were already present one million years ago. These findings highlight the potential of deep-time palaeogenomics to expand our understanding of speciation and long-term adaptive evolution.</p>}},
  author       = {{van der Valk, Tom and Pečnerová, Patrícia and Díez-Del-Molino, David and Bergström, Anders and Oppenheimer, Jonas and Hartmann, Stefanie and Xenikoudakis, Georgios and Thomas, Jessica A and Dehasque, Marianne and Sağlıcan, Ekin and Fidan, Fatma Rabia and Barnes, Ian and Liu, Shanlin and Somel, Mehmet and Heintzman, Peter D and Nikolskiy, Pavel and Shapiro, Beth and Skoglund, Pontus and Hofreiter, Michael and Lister, Adrian M and Götherström, Anders and Dalén, Love}},
  issn         = {{0028-0836}},
  keywords     = {{Acclimatization/genetics; Alleles; Animals; Bayes Theorem; DNA, Ancient/analysis; Elephants/genetics; Europe; Evolution, Molecular; Female; Fossils; Genetic Variation/genetics; Genome, Mitochondrial/genetics; Genomics; Mammoths/genetics; Markov Chains; Molar; North America; Phylogeny; Radiometric Dating; Siberia; Time Factors}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{7849}},
  pages        = {{265--269}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature}},
  title        = {{Million-year-old DNA sheds light on the genomic history of mammoths}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03224-9}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41586-021-03224-9}},
  volume       = {{591}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}