TY  - JOUR
A1  - Warken, Sophie Friederike
A1  - Fohlmeister, Jens Bernd
A1  - Schröder-Ritzrauh, Andrea
A1  - Constantin, Silviu
A1  - Spötl, Christoph
A1  - Gerdes, Axel
A1  - Esper, Jan
A1  - Frank, Norbert
A1  - Arps, Jennifer
A1  - Terente, Mihai
A1  - Riechelmann, Dana Felicitas Christine
A1  - Mangini, Augusto
A1  - Scholz, Denis
T1  - Reconstruction of late Holocene autumn/winter precipitation variability in SW Romania from a high-resolution speleothem trace element record
JF  - Earth & planetary science letters
N2  - 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.
KW  - speleothem
KW  - trace elements
KW  - proxy calibration
KW  - precipitation reconstruction
KW  - Romania
KW  - North Atlantic forcing
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2018.07.027
SN  - 0012-821X
SN  - 1385-013X
VL  - 499
SP  - 122
EP  - 133
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - González-Fortes, Gloria M.
A1  - Kolbe, Ben
A1  - Fernandes, Daniel
A1  - Meleg, Ioana N.
A1  - Garcia-Vazquez, Ana
A1  - Pinto-Llona, Ana C.
A1  - Constantin, Silviu
A1  - de Torres, Trino J.
A1  - Ortiz, Jose E.
A1  - Frischauf, Christine
A1  - Rabeder, Gernot
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
A1  - Barlow, Axel
T1  - Ancient DNA reveals differences in behaviour and sociality between brown bears and extinct cave bears
JF  - Molecular ecology
N2  - 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.
KW  - ancient DNA
KW  - extinction
KW  - homing
KW  - sociality
KW  - Ursus arctos
KW  - Ursus spelaeus
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13800
SN  - 0962-1083
SN  - 1365-294X
VL  - 25
SP  - 4907
EP  - 4918
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Comas-Bru, Laia
A1  - Harrison, Sandy P.
A1  - Werner, Martin
A1  - Rehfeld, Kira
A1  - Scroxton, Nick
A1  - Veiga-Pires, Cristina
A1  - Ahmad, Syed Masood
A1  - Brahim, Yassine Ait
A1  - Mozhdehi, Sahar Amirnezhad
A1  - Arienzo, Monica
A1  - Atsawawaranunt, Kamolphat
A1  - Baker, Andy
A1  - Braun, Kerstin
A1  - Breitenbach, Sebastian Franz Martin
A1  - Burstyn, Yuval
A1  - Chawchai, Sakonvan
A1  - Columbu, Andrea
A1  - Deininger, Michael
A1  - Demeny, Attila
A1  - Dixon, Bronwyn
A1  - Hatvani, Istvan Gabor
A1  - Hu, Jun
A1  - Kaushal, Nikita
A1  - Kern, Zoltan
A1  - Labuhn, Inga
A1  - Lachniet, Matthew S.
A1  - Lechleitner, Franziska A.
A1  - Lorrey, Andrew
A1  - Markowska, Monika
A1  - Nehme, Carole
A1  - Novello, Valdir F.
A1  - Oster, Jessica
A1  - Perez-Mejias, Carlos
A1  - Pickering, Robyn
A1  - Sekhon, Natasha
A1  - Wang, Xianfeng
A1  - Warken, Sophie
A1  - Atkinson, Tim
A1  - Ayalon, Avner
A1  - Baldini, James
A1  - Bar-Matthews, Miryam
A1  - Bernal, Juan Pablo
A1  - Boch, Ronny
A1  - Borsato, Andrea
A1  - Boyd, Meighan
A1  - Brierley, Chris
A1  - Cai, Yanjun
A1  - Carolin, Stacy
A1  - Cheng, Hai
A1  - Constantin, Silviu
A1  - Couchoud, Isabelle
A1  - Cruz, Francisco
A1  - Denniston, Rhawn
A1  - Dragusin, Virgil
A1  - Duan, Wuhui
A1  - Ersek, Vasile
A1  - Finne, Martin
A1  - Fleitmann, Dominik
A1  - Fohlmeister, Jens Bernd
A1  - Frappier, Amy
A1  - Genty, Dominique
A1  - Holzkamper, Steffen
A1  - Hopley, Philip
A1  - Johnston, Vanessa
A1  - Kathayat, Gayatri
A1  - Keenan-Jones, Duncan
A1  - Koltai, Gabriella
A1  - Li, Ting-Yong
A1  - Lone, Mahjoor Ahmad
A1  - Luetscher, Marc
A1  - Mattey, Dave
A1  - Moreno, Ana
A1  - Moseley, Gina
A1  - Psomiadis, David
A1  - Ruan, Jiaoyang
A1  - Scholz, Denis
A1  - Sha, Lijuan
A1  - Smith, Andrew Christopher
A1  - Strikis, Nicolas
A1  - Treble, Pauline
A1  - Unal-Imer, Ezgi
A1  - Vaks, Anton
A1  - Vansteenberge, Stef
A1  - Voarintsoa, Ny Riavo G.
A1  - Wong, Corinne
A1  - Wortham, Barbara
A1  - Wurtzel, Jennifer
A1  - Zhang, Haiwei
T1  - Evaluating model outputs using integrated global speleothem records of climate change since the last glacial
JF  - Climate of the past : an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union
N2  - 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.
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1557-2019
SN  - 1814-9324
SN  - 1814-9332
VL  - 15
IS  - 4
SP  - 1557
EP  - 1579
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Chang, Dan
A1  - Knapp, Michael
A1  - Enk, Jacob
A1  - Lippold, Sebastian
A1  - Kircher, Martin
A1  - Lister, Adrian M.
A1  - MacPhee, Ross D. E.
A1  - Widga, Christopher
A1  - Czechowski, Paul
A1  - Sommer, Robert
A1  - Hodges, Emily
A1  - Stümpel, Nikolaus
A1  - Barnes, Ian
A1  - Dalén, Love
A1  - Derevianko, Anatoly
A1  - Germonpré, Mietje
A1  - Hillebrand-Voiculescu, Alexandra
A1  - Constantin, Silviu
A1  - Kuznetsova, Tatyana
A1  - Mol, Dick
A1  - Rathgeber, Thomas
A1  - Rosendahl, Wilfried
A1  - Tikhonov, Alexey N.
A1  - Willerslev, Eske
A1  - Hannon, Greg
A1  - Lalueza i Fox, Carles
A1  - Joger, Ulrich
A1  - Poinar, Hendrik N.
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
A1  - Shapiro, Beth
T1  - The evolutionary and phylogeographic history of woolly mammoths
BT  - a comprehensive mitogenomic analysis
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - 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.
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/srep44585
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 7
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
CY  - London
ER  -