Rates of Evolution in Ancient DNA from Adelie Penguins

Well-preserved subfossil bones of Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae , underlieexisting and abandoned nesting colonies in Antarctica. These bones, dating backto more than 7000 years before the present, harbor some of the best-preservedancient DNA yet discovered. From 96 radiocarbon-aged bones, we r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Lambert, DM, Ritchie, PA, Millar, CD, Holland, BR, Drummond, AJ, Baroni, C
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2002
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Genetics
Molecular Evolution
Antarc*
Antarctica
Pygoscelis adeliae
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1068105
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11910113
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/63083
Description
Summary:Well-preserved subfossil bones of Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae , underlieexisting and abandoned nesting colonies in Antarctica. These bones, dating backto more than 7000 years before the present, harbor some of the best-preservedancient DNA yet discovered. From 96 radiocarbon-aged bones, we report largenumbers of mitochondrial haplotypes, some of which appear to be extinct, giventhe 380 living birds sampled. We demonstrate DNA sequence evolution throughtime and estimate the rate of evolution of the hypervariable region I using aMarkov chain Monte Carlo integration and a least-squares regression analysis.Our calculated rates of evolution are approximately two to seven times higherthan previous indirect phylogenetic estimates.

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