The gut bacteria of giraffes are not primarily determined by what they eat, but by the species they belong to. This is shown in a new study from Uppsala University and Brown University in which researchers have analysed the link between diet and gut flora in three giraffe species in Kenya. The study also provides new knowledge that can help secure the food supply of endangered giraffe species.
Researchers have uncovered the ancestral origins and genetic diversity of the Fulani, one of Africa’s largest pastoral populations. The study reveals a complex genetic ancestry with influences from both North and West African groups, shaped by historical migrations that have left a lasting impact on their genetic landscape.
In an international collaboration, researchers at Uppsala University have been able to identify undigested food remains, plants and prey in the fossilised faeces of dinosaurs. These analyses of hundreds of samples provide clues about the role dinosaurs played in the ecosystem around 200 million years ago. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
Seven of the most common forest trees in Europe have been shown to be able to shelter their genetic diversity from major shifts in environmental conditions. This is despite their ranges having shrunk and the number of trees having fallen sharply during ice age cycles. These are the findings of a study jointly led by Uppsala and Helsinki Universities, published in Nature Communications.
Krill in our northern waters show how key marine species can adapt genetically to cope with climate change. This is the discovery made by researchers at Uppsala University in collaboration with an international research group. According to the researchers, their study, published in Nature Communications, provides important knowledge that can help protect marine ecosystems when the climate changes.
Rabbits have colonised countries worldwide, often with dire economic and ecological consequences, but their secret has before been a mystery. In a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, an international consortium of scientists sequenced the genomes of nearly 300 rabbits from three continents to unveil the key genetic changes that make these animals master colonisers.
An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere – a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand’s South Island. 246 million years ago, at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs, New Zealand was located on the southern polar coast of a vast super-ocean called Panthalassa.
Blood relations and kinship were not all-important for the way hunter-gatherer communities lived during the Stone Age in Western Europe. A new genetic study, conducted at several well-known French Stone Age burial sites, shows that several distinct families lived together. This was probably a deliberate system for avoiding inbreeding.
Researchers at Uppsala University have studied the relationships between five closely related species of larks that occur in Africa south of the Sahara. They propose that the two species be split into seven. Some of them haven't been observed for decades, so the researchers analysed DNA from museum specimens, some of which were over 100 years old.
About 350 million people across Africa speak one or more of the 500 Bantu languages. New genetic analysis of modern and ancient individuals suggests that these populations probably originated in western Africa and then moved south and east in several waves. The study has been published in the scientific journal Nature.
The fossils of a 170-million-year-old ancient marine reptile from the Age of Dinosaurs have been identified as the oldest-known mega-predatory pliosaur – a group of ocean-dwelling reptiles closely related to the famous long-necked plesiosaurs. The findings are rare and add new knowledge to the evolution of plesiosaurs. The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
An international team of researchers has released a study on contemporary evolutionary change in natural populations. Their study uses one of the largest genomic datasets ever produced for animals in their natural environment, comprising nearly 4,000 Darwin’s finches. The study has revealed the genetic basis of adaptation in this iconic group. The results are published in the journal Science
He opened up a completely new field of research by sequencing the genome of our long-extinct relatives. For his scientific accomplishments, Svante Pääbo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022. He has now been named Uppsala University’s Alumnus of the Year 2023.
An international research consortium has generated and analysed 2000 canine genomes. The resulting advanced genetics toolkit can now be used to answer complex biological questions, spanning dog domestication, genetic differences in breed morphology, behaviour and disease susceptibility, as well as the evolution and structure of the genome.
A new DNA study has nuanced the picture of how different groups intermingled during the European Stone Age, but also how certain groups of people were actually isolated. The study was carried out by researchers at Uppsala University working with an international team of researchers, who produced new genetic data from 56 Central and Eastern European individuals from the Stone Age.
A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from Morocco in northwest Africa revealed that food production was introduced by Neolithic European and Levantine migrants and then adopted by local groups. A research team from Sweden, Spain and Morocco present their results in Nature on June 7th.
In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden, together with colleagues from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, have investigated the impact that a barren living environment for sows leaves on the next generation. The pigs in the study were bred in Brazil and kept according to breeding standards in that country. The sows’ uncomfortable and unstimulating environment brought with i
A major international research project, jointly led by Prof Kerstin Lindblad-Toh at Uppsala University and Broad Institute has surveyed and analysed the genomes of 240 different mammals. The results, now published in 11 articles in the journal Science, show how the genomes of humans and other mammals have developed over the course of evolution.
For nearly 190 years, scientists have searched for the origins of ancient sea-going reptiles from the Age of Dinosaurs. Now a team of Swedish and Norwegian palaeontologists has discovered remains of the earliest known ichthyosaur or ‘fish-lizard’ on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen.
Researchers at Uppsala University have shown that Scandinavian wolves carry around 100,000 harmful mutations in their genome. As long as the harmful mutations can be compensated by a healthy genetic variant, this does not need to pose a problem. However, as there has been a high level of inbreeding in the wolf population, the occurrence of double harmful variants has increased with each generation
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