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Originally published in Science Express on 17 April 2003
Science 2 May 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5620, pp. 791 - 795
DOI: 10.1126/science.1084114
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Reports

Diverse Plant and Animal Genetic Records from Holocene and Pleistocene Sediments

Eske Willerslev,1* Anders J. Hansen,1*{dagger} Jonas Binladen,1 Tina B. Brand,1 M. Thomas P. Gilbert,2 Beth Shapiro,2 Michael Bunce,2 Carsten Wiuf,3 David A. Gilichinsky,4 Alan Cooper2

Genetic analyses of permafrost and temperate sediments reveal that plant and animal DNA may be preserved for long periods, even in the absence of obvious macrofossils. In Siberia, five permafrost cores ranging from 400,000 to 10,000 years old contained at least 19 different plant taxa, including the oldest authenticated ancient DNA sequences known, and megafaunal sequences including mammoth, bison, and horse. The genetic data record a number of dramatic changes in the taxonomic diversity and composition of Beringian vegetation and fauna. Temperate cave sediments in New Zealand also yielded DNA sequences of extinct biota, including two species of ratite moa, and 29 plant taxa characteristic of the prehuman environment. Therefore, many sedimentary deposits may contain unique, and widespread, genetic records of paleoenvironments.

1 Department of Evolutionary Biology, Zoological Institute, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, Denmark DK-2100 Ø.
2 Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
3 Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK.
4 Soil Cryology Laboratory, Institute for PhysicoChemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142290, Pushchino, Moscow Region, Russia.


* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ajhansen{at}zi.ku.dk

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