scholarly journals Ancient DNA from Guam and the peopling of the Pacific

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. e2022112118
Author(s):  
Irina Pugach ◽  
Alexander Hübner ◽  
Hsiao-chun Hung ◽  
Matthias Meyer ◽  
Mike T. Carson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Source Population ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
Genome Sequences ◽  
Close Link ◽  
Snp Data ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Western Pacific

Humans reached the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific by ∼3,500 y ago, contemporaneous with or even earlier than the initial peopling of Polynesia. They crossed more than 2,000 km of open ocean to get there, whereas voyages of similar length did not occur anywhere else until more than 2,000 y later. Yet, the settlement of Polynesia has received far more attention than the settlement of the Marianas. There is uncertainty over both the origin of the first colonizers of the Marianas (with different lines of evidence suggesting variously the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, or the Bismarck Archipelago) as well as what, if any, relationship they might have had with the first colonizers of Polynesia. To address these questions, we obtained ancient DNA data from two skeletons from the Ritidian Beach Cave Site in northern Guam, dating to ∼2,200 y ago. Analyses of complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequences and genome-wide SNP data strongly support ancestry from the Philippines, in agreement with some interpretations of the linguistic and archaeological evidence, but in contradiction to results based on computer simulations of sea voyaging. We also find a close link between the ancient Guam skeletons and early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the Marianas and Polynesia were colonized from the same source population, and raising the possibility that the Marianas played a role in the eventual settlement of Polynesia.

scholarly journals Ancient DNA from Guam and the Peopling of the Pacific

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Pugach ◽  
Alexander Hübner ◽  
Hsiao-chun Hung ◽  
Matthias Meyer ◽  
Mike T. Carson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Dna ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Source Population ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
Close Link ◽  
Bismarck Archipelago ◽  
The Western Pacific ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

AbstractHumans reached the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific by ~3500 years ago, contemporaneous with or even earlier than the initial peopling of Polynesia. They crossed more than 2000 km of open ocean to get there, whereas voyages of similar length did not occur anywhere else until more than 2000 years later. Yet, the settlement of Polynesia has received far more attention than the settlement of the Marianas. There is uncertainty over both the origin of the first colonizers of the Marianas (with different lines of evidence suggesting variously the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, or the Bismarck Archipelago) as well as what, if any, relationship they might have had with the first colonizers of Polynesia. To address these questions, we obtained ancient DNA data from two skeletons from the Ritidian Beach Cave site in northern Guam, dating to ~2200 years ago. Analyses of complete mtDNA genome sequences and genome-wide SNP data strongly support ancestry from the Philippines, in agreement with some interpretations of the linguistic and archaeological evidence, but in contradiction to results based on computer simulations of sea voyaging. We also find a close link between the ancient Guam skeletons and early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the Marianas and Polynesia were colonized from the same source population, and raising the possibility that the Marianas played a role in the eventual settlement of Polynesia.Significance StatementWe know far more about the settlement of Polynesia than we do about the settlement of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. There is debate over where people came from to get to the Marianas, with various lines of evidence pointing to the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, or the Bismarck Archipelago, as well as uncertainty over how the ancestors of the present Mariana Islanders, the Chamorro, might be related to Polynesians. We analyzed ancient DNA from Guam, from two skeletons dating to ~2200 years ago, and found that their ancestry is linked to the Philippines. Moreover, they are closely-related to ancient Polynesians from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the early Mariana Islanders may have been involved in the colonization of Polynesia.

scholarly journals A root for massive crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks in the Pacific Ocean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Yasuda ◽  
June Inoue ◽  
Michael R. Hall ◽  
Manoj R. Nair ◽  
Mehdi Adjeroud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
French Polynesia ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Central Pacific ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
The Western Pacific

AbstractRecurring outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) severely damage healthy corals in the Western Pacific Ocean. To determine the source of outbreaking COTS larvae and their dispersal routes across the Western Pacific, complete mitochondrial genomes were sequenced from 243 individuals collected in 11 reef regions. Our results indicate that Pacific COTS comprise two major clades, an East-Central Pacific clade (ECP-C) and a Pan-Pacific clade (PP-C). The ECP-C consists of COTS from French Polynesia (FP), Fiji, Vanuatu and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), and does not appear prone to outbreaks. In contrast, the PP-C, which repeatedly spawns outbreaks, is a large clade comprising COTS from FP, Fiji, Vanuatu, GBR, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. Given the nature of Pacific Ocean currents, the vast area encompassing FP, Fiji, Vanuatu, and the GBR likely supplies larvae for repeated outbreaks, exacerbated by anthropogenic environmental changes, such as eutrophication.

scholarly journals A review of some common Indo-Malayan and western Pacific species of Chthamalus barnacles (Crustacea: Cirripedia)

2003 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 797-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.J. Southward ◽  
W.A. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Southern China ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Ryukyu Islands ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
The Ryukyu Islands ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Western Pacific

The type specimens of the common tropical intertidal barnacles Chthamalus malayensis and C. moro, were re-investigated and compared with other specimens of Chthamalus from the Indian Ocean, Indo-Malaya, northern Australia, Vietnam, China and the western Pacific, using ‘arthropodal’ as well as shell characters.  Chthamalus malayensis occurs widely in Indo-Malayan and tropical Australian waters. It ranges westwards in the Indian Ocean to East Africa and northwards in the Pacific to Vietnam, China and the Ryukyu Islands. Chthamalus malayensis has the arthropodal characters attributed to it by Pope (1965); conical spines on cirrus 1 and serrate setae with basal guards on cirrus 2.  Chthamalus moro is currently fully validated only for the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Xisha (Paracel) Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands, Fiji and Samoa. It is a small species of the ‘challengeri’ subgroup, lacking conical spines on cirrus 1 and bearing pectinate setae without basal guards on cirrus 2. It may be a ‘relict’ insular species.  Chthamalus challengeri also lacks conical spines on cirrus 1 and has pectinate setae without basal guards on cirrus 2. Records of C. challengeri south of Japan are probably erroneous. However, there is an undescribed species of the ‘challengeri’ subgroup in the Indian Ocean, Indo-Malaya, Vietnam and southern China and yet more may occur in the western Pacific. The subgroups ‘malayensis’ and ‘challengeri’ require genetic investigation.  Some comments are included on the arthropodal characters and geographical distributions of Chthamalus antennatus, C. dalli and C. stellatus.

Estimating trajectories of colonisation to the Mariana Islands, western Pacific

Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (337) ◽  
pp. 840-853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott M. Fitzpatrick ◽  
Richard T. Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Western Pacific ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
Early Human

The colonisation of the Pacific islands represents one of the major achievements of early human societies and has attracted much attention from archaeologists and historical linguists. Determining the pattern and chronology of colonisation remains a challenge, as new discoveries continue to push back dates of earliest settlement. The length and direction of the colonising voyages has also led to lively debate seeking to trace languages and artefactual techniques and traditions to presumed places of origin. Seafaring simulation models provide one way of resolving these controversies. One of the most remote of these island groups, the Marianas, is shown here to have been settled not from Taiwan or the Philippines, as has been argued in Antiquity by Hung et al. (2011) and Winter et al. (2012), but from New Guinea or Island Southeast Asia to the south. It represents an incredible feat of early navigation over an ocean distance of some 2000km.

Tales of the Pacific

Worldview ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 7-9
Author(s):  
Patricia Luce Chapman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
World War ◽  
Northern Mariana Islands ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Thousand Islands ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Republic Of Palau ◽  
The Western Pacific

The American “strategic trusteeship” of Micronesia, awarded by the United Nations after the Japanese defeat in World War II, is today giving way to a new political status for the islands. Tucked under the wing of the Federal Government since 1947—first as a ward of the Navy and* then of the Interior Department—the two thousand islands and atolls extending over three million-square miles of the Western Pacific are familiar only to those Americans old enough to have followed news of the war in the Pacific and of early A-bomb tests.The Micronesian chain begins with the Marshalls, 2,200 miles southwest of Hawaii—Bikini, Enewetak, and Kwajalein are here—and ends with the U.S. Territory of Guam, 1,600 mile east of Manila. To the west of the Marshalls are the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)—Truk and Yap among them. Above Guam stretch the islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and below, the Republic of Palau.

scholarly journals Genome Sequences of Poaceae-Associated Gemycircularviruses from the Pacific Ocean Island of Tonga

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maketalena F. Male ◽  
Viliami Kami ◽  
Simona Kraberger ◽  
Arvind Varsani
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Genome Sequences ◽  
Dna Viruses ◽  
Circular Dna ◽  
Ocean Island ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean

We sampled and analyzed 43 Poaceae plants from the Pacific Ocean island of Tonga for the presence of circular DNA viruses. From these samples, we recovered three gemycircularvirus genomes, which share >99% identity, from Brachiaria deflexa ( n = 2) and sugarcane ( n = 1). These genomes share <61% genome-wide identity with other gemycircularvirus sequences in public databases.

scholarly journals Genome-wide SNPs redefines species boundaries and conservation units in the freshwater mussel genus Cyprogenia of North America

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyung Seok Kim ◽  
Kevin J. Roe
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Freshwater Mussel ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Conservation Units ◽  
Genetic Structuring ◽  
The North ◽  
Snp Data ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Significant Difference

AbstractDetailed information on species delineation and population genetic structure is a prerequisite for designing effective restoration and conservation strategies for imperiled organisms. Phylogenomic and population genomic analyses based on genome-wide double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD-Seq) data has identified three allopatric lineages in the North American freshwater mussel genus Cyprogenia. Cyprogenia stegaria is restricted to the Eastern Highlands and displays little genetic structuring within this region. However, two allopatric lineages of C. aberti in the Ozark and Ouachita highlands exhibit substantial levels (mean uncorrected FST = 0.368) of genetic differentiation and each warrants recognition as a distinct evolutionary lineage. Lineages of Cyprogenia in the Ouachita and Ozark highlands are further subdivided reflecting structuring at the level of river systems. Species tree inference and species delimitation in a Bayesian framework using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) data supported results from phylogenetic analyses, and supports three species of Cyprogenia over the currently recognized two species. A comparison of SNPs generated from both destructively and non-destructively collected samples revealed no significant difference in the SNP error rate, quality and amount of ddRAD sequence reads, indicating that nondestructive or trace samples can be effectively utilized to generate SNP data for organisms for which destructive sampling is not permitted.

scholarly journals Genome-wide SNP data unravel the ancestry and signatures of divergent selection in Ghurrah pigs of India

2021 ◽  
pp. 104587
Author(s):  
Arnav Mehrotra ◽  
Bharat Bhushan ◽  
Karthikeyan A ◽  
Akansha Singh ◽  
Snehasmita Panda ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Divergent Selection ◽  
Snp Data ◽  
Genome Wide
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