DNA barcoding unravels contrasting evolutionary history of two widespread Asian tiger moth species during the Late Pleistocene

Abstract. To reconstruct the paleoenvironmental and chronological context of archaeological/paleontological sites is a key step to understand the evolutionary history of past organisms. Commonly used method to infer paleoenvironments rely on varied proxies such as faunal assemblages and isotopes. However, those proxies often show some inconsistencies. Regarding estimated ages of stratigraphic layers, they can vary depending on the dating method used. In this paper, we tested the potential of paleoclimate simulations to address this issue and contribute to the description of the environmental and chronological context of archaeological/paleontological sites. We produced a set of paleoclimate simulations corresponding to the stratigraphy of a Late-Pleistocene Holocene site, El Harhoura 2 (Morocco), and compared the climatic sequence described by these simulations to environmental inferences made from isotopes and faunal assemblages. Our results showed that in the studied site combined US-ESR ages were much more congruent with paleoenvironmental inferences than OSL ages. In addition, climatic variations were found to be more consistent with isotopic studies than faunal assemblages, allowing us to discuss unresolved discrepancies to date. This study illustrates the strong potential of our approach to refine the paleoenvironmental and chronological context of archaeological and paleontological sites.

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The Paleolithic in the Nihewan Basin, China: Evolutionary history of an Early to Late Pleistocene record in Eastern Asia

Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews ◽

10.1002/evan.21813 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 125-142 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Shi‐Xia Yang ◽

Cheng‐Long Deng ◽

Ri‐Xiang Zhu ◽

Michael D. Petraglia

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Eastern Asia ◽

Nihewan Basin ◽

History Of

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Ancient DNA Clarifies the Evolutionary History of American Late Pleistocene Equids

Journal of Molecular Evolution ◽

10.1007/s00239-008-9100-x ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 66 (5) ◽

pp. 533-538 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Ludovic Orlando ◽

Dean Male ◽

Maria Teresa Alberdi ◽

Jose Luis Prado ◽

Alfredo Prieto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Ancient Dna ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

History Of

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Ancient DNA of northern China Hystricidae sub-fossils reveals the evolutionary history of old world porcupines in the Late Pleistocene

BMC Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.1186/s12862-020-01656-x ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Guilian Sheng ◽

Jiaming Hu ◽

Haowen Tong ◽

Bastien Llamas ◽

Junxia Yuan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Ancient Dna ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Northern China ◽

Old World ◽

History Of

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Water vole Microtus richardsoni (Mammalia, Rodentia) from the Late Pleistocene of Alberta

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences ◽

10.1139/e82-051 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 628-631 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

James A. Burns

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Rocky Mountains ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Water Vole ◽

History Of

A Late Pleistocene specimen of the water vole has been recovered from a cave in the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta. Pleistocene records for this species are rare and this specimen is probably the oldest known. The evolutionary history of Microtus richardsoni, although yet uncertain, is tentatively discussed. Information is gained concerning the paleoenvironment of southwestern Alberta during late(?) mid-Wisconsinan time.

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Ancient mitochondrial genomes from Chinese cave hyenas provide insights into the evolutionary history of the genus Crocuta

Proceedings of The Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rspb.2020.2934 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 288 (1943) ◽

pp. 20202934

Author(s):

Jiaming Hu ◽

Michael V. Westbury ◽

Junxia Yuan ◽

Zhen Zhang ◽

Shungang Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Mitochondrial Genomes ◽

Effective Population ◽

Wide Range ◽

Two Samples ◽

Spotted Hyenas ◽

History Of ◽

Close Relatives

Cave hyenas (genus Crocuta ) are extinct bone-cracking carnivores from the family Hyaenidae and are generally split into two taxa that correspond to a European/Eurasian and an (East) Asian lineage. They are close relatives of the extant African spotted hyenas, the only extant member of the genus Crocuta . Cave hyenas inhabited a wide range across Eurasia during the Pleistocene, but became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene. Using genetic and genomic datasets, previous studies have proposed different scenarios about the evolutionary history of Crocuta. However, causes of the extinction of cave hyenas are widely speculative and samples from China are severely understudied. In this study, we assembled near-complete mitochondrial genomes from two cave hyenas from northeastern China dating to 20 240 and 20 253 calBP, representing the youngest directly dated fossils of Crocuta in Asia. Phylogenetic analyses suggest a monophyletic clade of these two samples within a deeply diverging mitochondrial haplogroup of Crocuta . Bayesian analyses suggest that the split of this Asian cave hyena mitochondrial lineage from their European and African relatives occurred approximately 1.85 Ma (95% CI 1.62–2.09 Ma), which is broadly concordant with the earliest Eurasian Crocuta fossil dating to approximately 2 Ma. Comparisons of mean genetic distance indicate that cave hyenas harboured higher genetic diversity than extant spotted hyenas, brown hyenas and aardwolves, but this is probably at least partially due to the fact that their mitochondrial lineages do not represent a monophyletic group, although this is also true for extant spotted hyenas. Moreover, the joint female effective population size of Crocuta (both cave hyenas and extant spotted hyenas) has sustained two declines during the Late Pleistocene. Combining this mitochondrial phylogeny, previous nuclear findings and fossil records, we discuss the possible relationship of fossil Crocuta in China and the extinction of cave hyenas.

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Characteristics of tiger moth (Erebidae: Arctiinae) anti-bat sounds can be predicted from tymbal morphology

Frontiers in Zoology ◽

10.1186/s12983-019-0345-6 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Nicolas J. Dowdy ◽

William E. Conner

Keyword(s):

Evolutionary History ◽

Sound Production ◽

Global Scale ◽

Strong Positive Correlation ◽

Acoustic Characteristics ◽

Tiger Moth ◽

Shared Ancestry ◽

History Of ◽

Tiger Moths ◽

The Relationship

Abstract Background Acoustic signals are used by many animals to transmit information. Variation in the acoustic characteristics of these signals often covaries with morphology and can relay information about an individual’s fitness, sex, species, and/or other characteristics important for both mating and defense. Tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae) use modified cuticular plates called “tymbal organs” to produce ultrasonic clicks which can aposematically signal their toxicity, mimic the signals of other species, or, in some cases, disrupt bat echolocation. The morphology of the tymbal organs and the sounds they produce vary greatly between species, but it is unclear how the variation in morphology gives rise to the variation in acoustic characteristics. This is the first study to determine how the morphological features of tymbals can predict the acoustic characteristics of the signals they produce. Results We show that the number of striations on the tymbal surface (historically known as “microtymbals”) and, to a lesser extent, the ratio of the projected surface area of the tymbal to that of the thorax have a strong, positive correlation with the number of clicks a moth produces per unit time. We also found that some clades have significantly different regression coefficients, and thus the relationship between microtymbals and click rate is also dependent on the shared ancestry of different species. Conclusions Our predictive model allows the click rates of moths to be estimated using preserved material (e.g., from museums) in cases where live specimens are unavailable. This has the potential to greatly accelerate our understanding of the distribution of sound production and acoustic anti-bat strategies employed by tiger moths. Such knowledge will generate new insights into the evolutionary history of tiger moth anti-predator defenses on a global scale.

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Rediscovering Lutra lutra from Grotta Romanelli (southern Italy) in the framework of the puzzling evolutionary history of Eurasian otter

PalZ ◽

10.1007/s12542-021-00553-y ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Beniamino Mecozzi ◽

Alessio Iannucci ◽

Fabio Bona ◽

Ilaria Mazzini ◽

Pierluigi Pieruccini ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Late Pleistocene ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Middle Pleistocene ◽

Lutra Lutra ◽

Multidisciplinary Research ◽

Historical Collections ◽

Eurasian Otter ◽

History Of ◽

Early Late ◽

Late Middle Pleistocene

AbstractA river otter hemimandible has been rediscovered during the revision of the historical collections of G.A. Blanc from Grotta Romanelli, complementing the ongoing multidisciplinary research fieldwork on the site. The specimen, recovered from the level G (“terre rosse”; early Late Pleistocene or late Middle Pleistocene), is here assigned to Lutra lutra. Indeed, morphological and morphometric comparisons with other Quaternary Lutrinae fossils from Europe allow to exclude an attribution to the relatively widespread and older Lutra simplicidens, characterized by distinctive carnassial proportions. Differences with Cyrnaonyx antiqua, which possessed a more robust, shellfish-feeding dentition, support the view of a successful niche repartition between the two species during the late Middle to Late Pleistocene of Europe. The occurrence of Lutra lutra from the “terre rosse” of Grotta Romanelli suggests deep modifications of the landscapes due to the ecological adaptation of the taxon, and indicates that the Eurasian otter spread into Europe at the Middle–Late Pleistocene transition.

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