@article{ChangKnappEnketal.2017, author = {Chang, Dan and Knapp, Michael and Enk, Jacob and Lippold, Sebastian and Kircher, Martin and Lister, Adrian M. and MacPhee, Ross D. E. and Widga, Christopher and Czechowski, Paul and Sommer, Robert and Hodges, Emily and St{\"u}mpel, Nikolaus and Barnes, Ian and Dal{\´e}n, Love and Derevianko, Anatoly and Germonpr{\´e}, Mietje and Hillebrand-Voiculescu, Alexandra and Constantin, Silviu and Kuznetsova, Tatyana and Mol, Dick and Rathgeber, Thomas and Rosendahl, Wilfried and Tikhonov, Alexey N. and Willerslev, Eske and Hannon, Greg and Lalueza i Fox, Carles and Joger, Ulrich and Poinar, Hendrik N. and Hofreiter, Michael and Shapiro, Beth}, title = {The evolutionary and phylogeographic history of woolly mammoths}, series = {Scientific reports}, volume = {7}, journal = {Scientific reports}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, address = {London}, issn = {2045-2322}, doi = {10.1038/srep44585}, pages = {10}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, populations of the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) were distributed across parts of three continents, from western Europe and northern Asia through Beringia to the Atlantic seaboard of North America. Nonetheless, questions about the connectivity and temporal continuity of mammoth populations and species remain unanswered. We use a combination of targeted enrichment and high-throughput sequencing to assemble and interpret a data set of 143 mammoth mitochondrial genomes, sampled from fossils recovered from across their Holarctic range. Our dataset includes 54 previously unpublished mitochondrial genomes and significantly increases the coverage of the Eurasian range of the species. The resulting global phylogeny confirms that the Late Pleistocene mammoth population comprised three distinct mitochondrial lineages that began to diverge ~1.0-2.0 million years ago (Ma). We also find that mammoth mitochondrial lineages were strongly geographically partitioned throughout the Pleistocene. In combination, our genetic results and the pattern of morphological variation in time and space suggest that male-mediated gene flow, rather than large-scale dispersals, was important in the Pleistocene evolutionary history of mammoths.}, language = {en} } @article{WarkenFohlmeisterSchroederRitzrauhetal.2018, author = {Warken, Sophie Friederike and Fohlmeister, Jens Bernd and Schr{\"o}der-Ritzrauh, Andrea and Constantin, Silviu and Sp{\"o}tl, Christoph and Gerdes, Axel and Esper, Jan and Frank, Norbert and Arps, Jennifer and Terente, Mihai and Riechelmann, Dana Felicitas Christine and Mangini, Augusto and Scholz, Denis}, title = {Reconstruction of late Holocene autumn/winter precipitation variability in SW Romania from a high-resolution speleothem trace element record}, series = {Earth \& planetary science letters}, volume = {499}, journal = {Earth \& planetary science letters}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0012-821X}, doi = {10.1016/j.epsl.2018.07.027}, pages = {122 -- 133}, year = {2018}, abstract = {We present the first high-resolution trace element (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca) record from a stalagmite in southwestern Romania covering the last 3.6 ka, which provides the potential for quantitative climate reconstruction. Precise age control is based on three independent dating methods, in particular for the last 250 yr, where chemical lamina counting is combined with the identification of the 20th century radiocarbon bomb peak and Th-230/U dating. Long-term cave monitoring and model simulations of drip water and speleothem elemental variability indicate that precipitation-related processes are the main drivers of speleothem Mg/Ca ratios. Calibration against instrumental climate data shows a significant anti-correlation of speleothem Mg/Ca ratios with autumn/winter (October to March) precipitation (r = -0.61, p < 0.01), which is statistically robust when considering age uncertainties and auto-correlation. This relationship is used to develop a quantitative reconstruction of autumn/winter precipitation. During the late Holocene, our data suggest a heterogeneous pattern of past regional winter hydroclimate in the Carpathian/Balkan realm, along with intermittent weakening of the dominant influence of North Atlantic forcing. In agreement with other regional paleo-hydrological reconstructions, the observed variability reveals periodically occurring strong NW-SE hydro-climate gradients. We hypothesize, that this pattern is caused by shifts of the eastern edge of the area of influence of the NAO across central eastern Europe due to the confluence of North Atlantic forcing, and other climatic features such as the East Atlantic/Western Russia (EAWR) pattern. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{ComasBruHarrisonWerneretal.2019, author = {Comas-Bru, Laia and Harrison, Sandy P. and Werner, Martin and Rehfeld, Kira and Scroxton, Nick and Veiga-Pires, Cristina and Ahmad, Syed Masood and Brahim, Yassine Ait and Mozhdehi, Sahar Amirnezhad and Arienzo, Monica and Atsawawaranunt, Kamolphat and Baker, Andy and Braun, Kerstin and Breitenbach, Sebastian Franz Martin and Burstyn, Yuval and Chawchai, Sakonvan and Columbu, Andrea and Deininger, Michael and Demeny, Attila and Dixon, Bronwyn and Hatvani, Istvan Gabor and Hu, Jun and Kaushal, Nikita and Kern, Zoltan and Labuhn, Inga and Lachniet, Matthew S. and Lechleitner, Franziska A. and Lorrey, Andrew and Markowska, Monika and Nehme, Carole and Novello, Valdir F. and Oster, Jessica and Perez-Mejias, Carlos and Pickering, Robyn and Sekhon, Natasha and Wang, Xianfeng and Warken, Sophie and Atkinson, Tim and Ayalon, Avner and Baldini, James and Bar-Matthews, Miryam and Bernal, Juan Pablo and Boch, Ronny and Borsato, Andrea and Boyd, Meighan and Brierley, Chris and Cai, Yanjun and Carolin, Stacy and Cheng, Hai and Constantin, Silviu and Couchoud, Isabelle and Cruz, Francisco and Denniston, Rhawn and Dragusin, Virgil and Duan, Wuhui and Ersek, Vasile and Finne, Martin and Fleitmann, Dominik and Fohlmeister, Jens Bernd and Frappier, Amy and Genty, Dominique and Holzkamper, Steffen and Hopley, Philip and Johnston, Vanessa and Kathayat, Gayatri and Keenan-Jones, Duncan and Koltai, Gabriella and Li, Ting-Yong and Lone, Mahjoor Ahmad and Luetscher, Marc and Mattey, Dave and Moreno, Ana and Moseley, Gina and Psomiadis, David and Ruan, Jiaoyang and Scholz, Denis and Sha, Lijuan and Smith, Andrew Christopher and Strikis, Nicolas and Treble, Pauline and Unal-Imer, Ezgi and Vaks, Anton and Vansteenberge, Stef and Voarintsoa, Ny Riavo G. and Wong, Corinne and Wortham, Barbara and Wurtzel, Jennifer and Zhang, Haiwei}, title = {Evaluating model outputs using integrated global speleothem records of climate change since the last glacial}, series = {Climate of the past : an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, volume = {15}, journal = {Climate of the past : an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union}, number = {4}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, organization = {SISAL Working Grp}, issn = {1814-9324}, doi = {10.5194/cp-15-1557-2019}, pages = {1557 -- 1579}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Although quantitative isotope data from speleothems has been used to evaluate isotope-enabled model simulations, currently no consensus exists regarding the most appropriate methodology through which to achieve this. A number of modelling groups will be running isotope-enabled palaeoclimate simulations in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, so it is timely to evaluate different approaches to using the speleothem data for data-model comparisons. Here, we illustrate this using 456 globally distributed speleothem δ18O records from an updated version of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis (SISAL) database and palaeoclimate simulations generated using the ECHAM5-wiso isotope-enabled atmospheric circulation model. We show that the SISAL records reproduce the first-order spatial patterns of isotopic variability in the modern day, strongly supporting the application of this dataset for evaluating model-derived isotope variability into the past. However, the discontinuous nature of many speleothem records complicates the process of procuring large numbers of records if data-model comparisons are made using the traditional approach of comparing anomalies between a control period and a given palaeoclimate experiment. To circumvent this issue, we illustrate techniques through which the absolute isotope values during any time period could be used for model evaluation. Specifically, we show that speleothem isotope records allow an assessment of a model's ability to simulate spatial isotopic trends. Our analyses provide a protocol for using speleothem isotope data for model evaluation, including screening the observations to take into account the impact of speleothem mineralogy on δ18O values, the optimum period for the modern observational baseline and the selection of an appropriate time window for creating means of the isotope data for palaeo-time-slices.}, language = {en} } @article{GonzalezFortesKolbeFernandesetal.2016, author = {Gonz{\´a}lez-Fortes, Gloria M. and Kolbe, Ben and Fernandes, Daniel and Meleg, Ioana N. and Garcia-Vazquez, Ana and Pinto-Llona, Ana C. and Constantin, Silviu and de Torres, Trino J. and Ortiz, Jose E. and Frischauf, Christine and Rabeder, Gernot and Hofreiter, Michael and Barlow, Axel}, title = {Ancient DNA reveals differences in behaviour and sociality between brown bears and extinct cave bears}, series = {Molecular ecology}, volume = {25}, journal = {Molecular ecology}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0962-1083}, doi = {10.1111/mec.13800}, pages = {4907 -- 4918}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Ancient DNA studies have revolutionized the study of extinct species and populations, providing insights on phylogeny, phylogeography, admixture and demographic history. However, inferences on behaviour and sociality have been far less frequent. Here, we investigate the complete mitochondrial genomes of extinct Late Pleistocene cave bears and middle Holocene brown bears that each inhabited multiple geographically proximate caves in northern Spain. In cave bears, we find that, although most caves were occupied simultaneously, each cave almost exclusively contains a unique lineage of closely related haplotypes. This remarkable pattern suggests extreme fidelity to their birth site in cave bears, best described as homing behaviour, and that cave bears formed stable maternal social groups at least for hibernation. In contrast, brown bears do not show any strong association of mitochondrial lineage and cave, suggesting that these two closely related species differed in aspects of their behaviour and sociality. This difference is likely to have contributed to cave bear extinction, which occurred at a time in which competition for caves between bears and humans was likely intense and the ability to rapidly colonize new hibernation sites would have been crucial for the survival of a species so dependent on caves for hibernation as cave bears. Our study demonstrates the potential of ancient DNA to uncover patterns of behaviour and sociality in ancient species and populations, even those that went extinct many tens of thousands of years ago.}, language = {en} }