Rates of evolution in ancient DNA from Adelie penguins

Well-preserved subfossil bones of Adelie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, underlie existing and abandoned nesting colonies in Antarctica. These bones, dating back to more than 7000 years before the present, harbor some of the best-preserved ancient DNA yet discovered. From 96 radiocarbon-aged bones, we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Lambert, David Martin, Ritchie, Peter A., Millar, Craig D., Holland, B., Drummond, A.J., Baroni, Carlo
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2002
Subjects:
Molecular Evolution
Antarc*
Antarctica
Pygoscelis adeliae
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10072/54919
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1068105
Description
Summary:Well-preserved subfossil bones of Adelie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, underlie existing and abandoned nesting colonies in Antarctica. These bones, dating back to more than 7000 years before the present, harbor some of the best-preserved ancient DNA yet discovered. From 96 radiocarbon-aged bones, we report large numbers of mitochondrial haplotypes, some of which appear to be extinct, given the 380 living birds sampled. We demonstrate DNA sequence evolution through time and estimate the rate of evolution of the hypervariable region I using a Markov chain Monte Carlo integration and a least-squares regression analysis. our calculated rates of evolution are approximately two to seven times higher than previous indirect phylogenetic estimates. Faculty of Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology No Full Text

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