posted February 01, 2024
BCST - A genomic perspective on mammoth evolution and extinction
Beringia Centre Science Talks are back! Join us as we explore fascinating topics in archaeology, natural science, and palaeontology.
For this talk, we'll be joined by Love Dalén, professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and co-founder of the Swedish Centre for Palaeogenetics.
About the Talk
During the Pleistocene, the era of ice ages that started 2.6 million years ago, mammoths diversified into several species in both Eurasia and North America. Some of these, most notably the woolly mammoth, became highly adapted to a cold environment, whereas others such as the Columbian mammoth inhabited lower latitudes. By reconstructing the oldest genomes ever sequenced, from mammoth specimens dated to before and after the speciation of woolly and Columbian mammoths, Love Dalén’s research group has investigated the origin of these species as well as the rate of adaptive evolution in the woolly mammoth lineage. Moving forward in time, they have also generated multiple high-coverage genomes from the last-surviving mammoth population on Wrangel Island in order to investigate changes in genome-wide diversity and inbreeding prior to the species’ extinction.