TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gonzalez-Fortes, Gloria M.
A1  - Tassi, F.
A1  - Trucchi, E.
A1  - Henneberger, K.
A1  - Paijmans, Johanna L. A.
A1  - Diez-del-Molino, D.
A1  - Schroeder, H.
A1  - Susca, R. R.
A1  - Barroso-Ruiz, C.
A1  - Bermudez, F. J.
A1  - Barroso-Medina, C.
A1  - Bettencourt, A. M. S.
A1  - Sampaio, H. A.
A1  - Salas, A.
A1  - de Lombera-Hermida, A.
A1  - Fabregas Valcarce, Ramón
A1  - Vaquero, M.
A1  - Alonso, S.
A1  - Lozano, Marina
A1  - Rodriguez-Alvarez, Xose Pedro
A1  - Fernandez-Rodriguez, C.
A1  - Manica, Andrea
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
A1  - Barbujani, Guido
T1  - A western route of prehistoric human migration from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula
JF  - Proceedings of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences
N2  - Being at the western fringe of Europe, Iberia had a peculiar prehistory and a complex pattern of Neolithization. A few studies, all based on modern populations, reported the presence of DNA of likely African origin in this region, generally concluding it was the result of recent gene flow, probably during the Islamic period. Here, we provide evidence of much older gene flow from Africa to Iberia by sequencing whole genomes from four human remains from northern Portugal and southern Spain dated around 4000 years BP (from the Middle Neolithic to the Bronze Age). We found one of them to carry an unequivocal sub-Saharan mitogenome of most probably West or West-Central African origin, to our knowledge never reported before in prehistoric remains outside Africa. Our analyses of ancient nuclear genomes show small but significant levels of sub-Saharan African affinity in several ancient Iberian samples, which indicates that what we detected was not an occasional individual phenomenon, but an admixture event recognizable at the population level. We interpret this result as evidence of an early migration process from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula through a western route, possibly across the Strait of Gibraltar.
KW  - palaeogenome
KW  - Africa
KW  - Iberia
KW  - mitochondrial DNA
KW  - gene flow
KW  - admixture
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.2288
SN  - 0962-8452
SN  - 1471-2954
VL  - 286
IS  - 1895
PB  - Royal Society
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Neiber, Marco Thomas
A1  - Kahl, Sandra M.
A1  - Wiggering, Benedikt
A1  - Glaubrecht, Matthias
T1  - Adding the West-African riverine component
BT  - Revision of the Recent freshwater snails belonging to Pseudocleopatra Thiele, 1928 (Caenogastropoda, Cerithioidea, Paludomidae)
JF  - Zootaxa : an international journal of zootaxonomy ; a rapid international journal for animal taxonomists
N2  - While Africa’s lacustrine gastropod fauna, in particular of Lake Tanganyika, has received much attention, the continent’s riverine malacofauna has long been neglected. Pseudocleopatra is a relatively poorly known paludomid gastropod genus with species found throughout the lower reaches of the West African Volta and Congo rivers. In the course of ongoing systematic revisions of African paludomids, we present here a morphometric analysis and revision of the recent species assigned to the genus, i.e., P. togoensis, P. voltana, P. dartevellei and P. bennikei, to improve taxonomic acuity for this group. We use available museum material for geometric morphometrics, multivariate ratio analysis and comparisons of radular and opercular characters. Our results demonstrate that the four recent species of Pseudocleopatra are clearly distinguishable on the basis of ratios of shell measurements as well as radular and opercular characters. Pseudocleopatra has generic-level synapomorphies including: concentric opercula with relatively large paucispiral nuclei, and rachidian radular teeth with usually 13–20 cusps. On the basis of this characterisation, the nominal species Cleopatra broecki is transferred to Pseudocleopatra. Additionally, the nominal taxon P. bennikei is synonymized with P. broecki n. comb. The phylogenetic relationships of Pseudocleopatra are currently unknown, but the observed tendency of some fossil taxa assigned to Pseudocleopatra towards thalassoidism, i.e., the resemblance to marine gastropods, has led to the hypothesis that some of the thalassoid endemics in Lake Tanganyika may have originated from or be related to Pseudocleopatra. Should this hypothesis be correct, which is in need of testing by molecular genetic methods when suitable samples become available, Pseudocleopatra may play a crucial role in understanding of the evolution of thalassoidism in African Paludomidae.
KW  - Africa
KW  - Congo River
KW  - Volta River
KW  - thalassoidism
KW  - geometric morphometrics
KW  - multivariate ratio analysis
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4674.3.1
SN  - 1175-5326
SN  - 1175-5334
VL  - 4674
IS  - 3
SP  - 301
EP  - 328
PB  - Magnolia Press
CY  - Auckland
ER  -