Understanding evolution through genomic analysis of extinct species
According to estimates, over the 3.5 billion years that have elapsed since the appearance of life, the Earth has been inhabited by some 4 billion different species, of which 99.99% have already become extinct. Extinction is a fundamental process in evolution. Traditionally, extinct species have been...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis doctoral |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | CBUC, CESCA |
| Repositorio: | TDR. Tesis Doctorales en Red |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/687787 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10803/687787 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Evolution Extinction Palaeogenomics Ancient DNA Fauna Evolució Extinció Paleogenòmica ADN antic 575 |
| Sumario: | According to estimates, over the 3.5 billion years that have elapsed since the appearance of life, the Earth has been inhabited by some 4 billion different species, of which 99.99% have already become extinct. Extinction is a fundamental process in evolution. Traditionally, extinct species have been studied by paleontologists based on fossil remains. With the emergence of paleogenomics, there has been a true revolution in the study of evolution. In this thesis we recover the complete nuclear genome of two extinct species, the Carolina parakeet (Conuropsis carolinensis), distributed in the southeastern United States and extinct in 1918, and the butterfly Xerces Blue (Glaucopsyche xerces) native to the coastal sand dunes of San Francisco and extinct in 1941. We also recover partial nuclear and mitochondrial genome of the Tenerife giant rat (Canariomys bravoi), an endemic species of Tenerife (Canary Islands) that it became extinct after the fourth century BCE. Thanks to the ancient DNA we have been able to carry out precise phylogenies of the three species, analyze possible signs of genetic erosion, explore the functionality of some genes, estimate the evolutionary rate and reconstruct the demographic history, in order to elucidate the dynamics of population decline. In brief, we have answered specific adaptive questions and improved our understanding of human-mediated extinction. |
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