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Science 22 March 2002:
Vol. 295. no. 5563, pp. 2270 - 2273
DOI: 10.1126/science.1068105
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Reports

Rates of Evolution in Ancient DNA from Adélie Penguins

D. M. Lambert,1*dagger ddagger P. A. Ritchie,1dagger ddagger C. D. Millar,3ddagger B. Holland,2 A. J. Drummond,3 C. Baroni4

Well-preserved subfossil bones of Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, underlie existing and abandoned nesting colonies in Antarctica. These bones, dating back to more than 7000 years before the present, harbor some of the best-preserved ancient DNA yet discovered. From 96 radiocarbon-aged bones, we report large numbers of mitochondrial haplotypes, some of which appear to be extinct, given the 380 living birds sampled. We demonstrate DNA sequence evolution through time and estimate the rate of evolution of the hypervariable region I using a Markov chain Monte Carlo integration and a least-squares regression analysis. Our calculated rates of evolution are approximately two to seven times higher than previous indirect phylogenetic estimates.

1 Institute of Molecular BioSciences,
2 Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, New Zealand.
3 School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
4 Dipartmento Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, and Consiglio Nazionale Ricerche, Centro Studio Geologia Strutturale, Via Santa Maria, 53, 56126, Pisa, Italy.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: D.M.Lambert{at}massey.ac.nz

dagger    These authors contributed equally to this work.

ddagger    Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, New Zealand.

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