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Deon de Jager

A final thing I am proud of is the fact that we helped the Iziko museum digitize the part of the collection we worked on with 3D scans on MorphoSource, photos on Zenodo & occurrence records on GBIF, before any destructive sampling was done. (e.g. 3D models: doi.org/10.17602/M2/...)

In our paper, we screened 144 antelope & buffalo teeth & bones from #SouthAfrica spanning the last 100,000 years. The oldest DNA we retrieved was between 21,000 and 50,000 years old! 👀 This is the oldest for sub-Saharan #Africa & we're busy confirming the age of these fossils.

Free online workshop for estimating relatedness from genomic data! Great opportunity especially for students and other early career researchers (but everyone is welcome)! #AaRCademy #popgen

Super cool resource! Something I wish existed a couple of years ago, so thanks for making it happen @anders-bergstrom.bsky.social & members of @aarc-community.bsky.social! There are still many more ancient animal genomes to add & we need more hands! If you're keen to help us out, see below 😊✌️

We also investigated collagen preservation in these fossils, and the correlation between collagen and DNA preservation. Collagen is used for direct radiocarbon dating of fossils, an NB data point for ancient DNA studies. We found a strong correlation when site was included: adj. R-sqrd = 0.72.

We are excited by these results, because it means we can probably do genetic studies of ancient animal populations in RSA, so long as they lived during the Holocene. And second, because this means we can do palaeogenetic studies of extinct like the giant long-horned buffalo! 🐃 So watch this space 👀

2mo

We found that 63% of the Holocene-aged fossils (younger than 11,700 years old) preserved DNA, while only 4 samples (9%) of the Pleistocene-aged fossils had ancient DNA. But this is still crazy to us, as it's the first time DNA has been retrieved from Pleistocene fossils in South Africa, v. exciting!

I'm excited by where this research is leading & I'd like to thank the Iziko Museum, our funders @ec.europa.eu MSCA, @villumfonden.bsky.social, @carlsbergfondet.dk) & my collaborators, without whom this could not have been done! @deadbovids.bsky.social @drandiwilson.bsky.social & those not on BlueSky

Only a few African palaeogenetic studies exist, focusing mostly within the last 2000 years. Thus, we share the lessons learned along the way at the end of the article to help others get the most out of African specimens, like using ssDNA libraries that retrieve shorter reads & more endogenous DNA!

Deon de Jager

The oldest DNA retrieved from an animal fossil is ~1.6 million years old - a mammoth from icy Siberia where cold temperatures preserve DNA well. But have you ever wondered how long #ancientDNA is preserved in animal remains from sunny & warm Africa? Well, wonder now more! doi.org/10.1016/j.qu...

Deon de Jager