Demographic reconstruction from ancient DNA supports rapid extinction of the great auk

The great auk was once abundant and distributed across the North Atlantic. It is now extinct, having been heavily exploited for its eggs, meat, and feathers. We investigated the impact of human hunting on its demise by integrating genetic data, GPS-based ocean current data, and analyses of population viability. We sequenced complete mitochondrial genomes of 41 individuals from across the species’ geographic range and reconstructed population structure and population dynamics throughout the Holocene. Taken together, our data do not provide any evidence that great auks were at risk of extinction prior to the onset of intensive human hunting in the early 16th century. In addition, our population viability analyses reveal that even if the great auk had not been under threat by environmental change, human hunting alone could have been sufficient to cause its extinction. Our results emphasise the vulnerability of even abundant and widespread species to intense and localised exploitation

Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution

Author version made available in accordance with Publisher copyright policy.The evolution of the ratite birds has been widely attributed to vicariant speciation, driven by the Cretaceous breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana. The early isolation of Africa and Madagascar implies that the ostrich and extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornithidae) should be the oldest ratite lineages. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two elephant birds and performed phylogenetic analyses, which revealed that these birds are the closest relatives of the New Zealand kiwi and are distant from the basal ratite lineage of ostriches. This unexpected result strongly contradicts continental vicariance and instead supports flighted dispersal in all major ratite lineages. We suggest that convergence toward gigantism and flightlessness was facilitated by early Tertiary expansion into the diurnal herbivory niche after the extinction of the dinosaurs

Disabling XAuthors, Disordering TextsX: Deconstructing Disability and Identity in ChangingX Times

Drawing on Badiou’s writing, we develop new insights on some central notions of the discourse on “disability.” We offer eight agonistic, intersecting trajectories addressing these concepts. Drawing on authorial voices, we criticize the grammatical and rhetorical maneuvers we have previously undertaken as we represent ourselves aiming for forms of participatory engagement, thus offering both critique and self-critique. Previous poststructuralist accounts in this area have drawn on “philosophers of difference,” but mainly Deleuze and Guattari. This piece offers innovation in harnessing aspects of Badiou’s thinking to issues surrounding “discourses of disability” and notions of the research “self” in its various “impersonations.

More than one way of being a moa: differences in leg bone robustness map divergent evolutionary trajectories in Dinornithidae and Emeidae (Dinornithiformes).

The extinct moa of New Zealand included three families (Megalapterygidae; Dinornithidae; Emeidae) of flightless palaeognath bird, ranging in mass from 200 kg. They are perceived to have evolved extremely robust leg bones, yet current estimates of body mass have very wide confidence intervals. Without reliable estimators of mass, the extent to which dinornithid and emeid hindlimbs were more robust than modern species remains unclear. Using the convex hull volumetric-based method on CT-scanned skeletons, we estimate the mass of a female Dinornis robustus (Dinornithidae) at 196 kg (range 155-245 kg) and of a female Pachyornis australis (Emeidae) as 50 kg (range 33-68 kg). Finite element analysis of CT-scanned femora and tibiotarsi of two moa and six species of modern palaeognath showed that P. australis experienced the lowest values for stress under all loading conditions, confirming it to be highly robust. In contrast, stress values in the femur of D. robustus were similar to those of modern flightless birds, whereas the tibiotarsus experienced the highest level of stress of any palaeognath. We consider that these two families of Dinornithiformes diverged in their biomechanical responses to selection for robustness and mobility, and exaggerated hindlimb strength was not the only successful evolutionary pathway

Myth or relict: does ancient DNA detect the enigmatic Upland seal?

Abstract not availableAlexander T. Salis, Luke J. Easton, Bruce C. Robertson, Neil Gemmell, Ian W.G. Smith, Marshall I. Weisler, Jonathan M. Waters, Nicolas J. Rawlenc

Animals, people and places in displacement

White argues that to understand human displacements, past and present, we need to consider animals too. Taking refugee camps as a field site, and discussing both domesticated and wild animals, the chapter explores the way animals figure in representations of human displacement, their role in the ‘emplacement’ of displaced people, and their own agency in this. From an initial focus on displacements caused by war and persecution, it zooms out to consider the relationship between human and animal displacements in the twenty-first-century context of increasing environmental stress, showing that they need to be understood in the same analytical frame. The conclusion suggests directions, and methods, for future research