• Ancient horse genomes reveal the timing and extent of dispersals across the Bering Land Bridge 

      Vershinina, Alisa; Heintzman, Peter D.; Froese, Duane G.; Zazula, Grant D.; Cassatt-Johnstone, Molly; Dalén, Love; Der Sarkissian, Clio; Dunn, Shelby G.; Ermini, Luca; Gamba, Cristina; Groves, Pamela; Kapp, Joshua D.; Mann, Daniel H.; Seguin-Orlando, Andaine; Southon, John R.; Stiller, Mathias; Wooller, Matthew J.; Baryshnikov, Gennady; Gimranov, Dmitry; Scott, Eric; Hall, Elizabeth; Hewitson, Susan; Kirillova, Irina V.; Kosintsev, Pavel; Shidlovsky, Fedor; Tong, Hao-Wen; Tiunov, Mikhail P.; Vartanyan, Sergey; Orlando, Ludovic; Corbett-Detig, Russell B.; MacPhee, Ross D. E.; Shapiro, Beth (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2021-05-10)
      The Bering Land Bridge (BLB) last connected Eurasia and North America during the Late Pleistocene. Although the BLB would have enabled transfers of terrestrial biota in both directions, it also acted as an ecological filter whose permeability varied considerably over time. Here we explore the possible impacts of this ecological corridor on genetic diversity within, and connectivity among, populations ...
    • Environmental genomics of Late Pleistocene black bears and giant short-faced bears 

      Pedersen, Mikkel W.; De Sanctis, Bianca; Saremi, Nedda F.; Sikora, Martin; Puckett, Emily E.; Gu, Zhenquan; Moon, Katherine L.; Kapp, Joshua D.; Vinner, Lasse; Vardanyan, Zaruhi; Ardelean, Ciprian F.; Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin; Cahill, James A.; Heintzman, Peter D.; Zazula, Grant D.; MacPhee, Ross D. E.; Shapiro, Beth; Durbin, Richard; Willerslev, Eske (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2021-04-19)
      Analysis of ancient environmental DNA (eDNA) has revolutionized our ability to describe biological communities in space and time,1, 2, 3 by allowing for parallel sequencing of DNA from all trophic levels.4, 5, 6, 7, 8 However, because environmental samples contain sparse and fragmented data from multiple individuals, and often contain closely related species,9 the field of ancient eDNA has so far ...
    • A new genus of horse from Pleistocene North America 

      Heintzman, Peter D.; Zazula, Grant D.; MacPhee, Ross D. E.; Scott, Eric; Cahill, James A.; McHorse, Brianna K.; Kapp, Joshua D.; Stiller, Mathias; Wooller, Matthew J.; Orlando, Ludovic; Southon, John R.; Froese, Duane G.; Shapiro, Beth (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2017-11-28)
      The extinct ‘New World stilt-legged’, or NWSL, equids constitute a perplexing group of Pleistocene horses endemic to North America. Their slender distal limb bones resemble those of Asiatic asses, such as the Persian onager. Previous palaeogenetic studies, however, have suggested a closer relationship to caballine horses than to Asiatic asses. Here, we report complete mitochondrial and partial nuclear ...