From passerine birds to cranes - Neolithic bird hunting in Upper Mesopotamia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STAATLICHE NATURWISSENSCHAFTLICHE SAMMLUNGEN BAYERNS

 

IMAGE: PILLAR 43 FROM GÖBEKLI TEPE DEPICTING A VULTURE WITH ITS WINGS SPREAD. VULTURES WERE NOT ONLY THE MOST IMPORTANT BIRDS IN THE ICONOGRAPHY OF EARLY NEOLITHIC HUNTER-GATHERER GROUPS, THEY WERE ALSO HUNTED. view more 

CREDIT: N. PÖLLATH, SNSB-SPM

Besides mammals, ranging from aurochs to hares, or fish, foragers also pursued an impressively large spectrum of bird species in Southeast Anatolia 11,000 years ago. They were hunted mainly, but not exclusively, in autumn and winter – at the time of year, when many bird species form larger flocks and migratory birds cross the area. The species lists are therefore very extensive: At the Early Neolithic settlement of Göbekli Tepe, for example, c.18 km northeast of present-day Şanlıurfa (SE Anatolia, Turkey), the researchers identified the remains of at least 84 bird species. Dr. Nadja Pöllath, curator at the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeoanatomy (Staatssammlung für Paläoanatomie München SNSB-SPM) and Prof. Dr. Joris Peters, chair of the Institute for Palaeoanatomy, Domestication Research and History of Veterinary Medicine at LMU München and director of the state collection, identified the Neolithic bird bones with the aid of the reference skeletons of the state collection.

The researchers were surprised by the large number of small passerine birds identified at Göbekli Tepe, comprising mainly starlings and buntings. In principle, the Early Neolithic inhabitants of Göbekli Tepe hunted birds in all habitats – mainly in the open grassland and wooded steppe in their direct surroundings, but also in the wetlands and gallery forest somewhat further away.

‘We do not know exactly, why they hunted so many small passerine birds at Göbekli Tepe. Due to their low live weight, the effort exceeds the meat yield by far. Perhaps they were simply a delicacy that enriched the menu in autumn, or they had a significance that we cannot deduce yet from the bone remains,’ Nadja Pöllath comments on her findings.

The inhabitants of Gusir Höyük, another Early Neolithic settlement on the shores of Lake Gusir, about 40 km south of the present-day provincial capital of Siirt, even further southeast in present-day Turkey, had a different approach: When fowling they pursued almost exclusively two species populating open hilly grasslands: the Chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar) and the grey partridge (Perdix perdix). They apparently ignored the avifauna of the nearby floodplains and the lake. Among several hundred fragments from Gusir Höyük, the archaeozoologists from Munich could not identify a single bone pertaining to waterfowl. ‘Gusir Höyük is the only Neolithic community in Upper Mesopotamia known to us that deliberately avoided wetlands and riverine landscapes when fowling, although they were present. Our results suggest that this was a cultural peculiarity of the Neolithic people inhabiting Gusir Höyük,’ said Prof. Dr. Joris Peters. ‘Our comparison of a number of Early Neolithic sites in the region revealed that the sites in the Euphrates Basin share many similarities regarding their meat procurement, while each community in the Tigris Basin seemingly developed its own subsistence strategy,’ adds Nadja Pöllath.

Neolithic settlers of Upper Mesopotamia hunted birds not only for their meat. Some species, such as cranes or raptors, certainly had a more symbolic meaning and served ritual purposes, the researchers suspect. In a future study, they will focus on these socio-cultural aspects of the human-avian relationship.

Tarsometatarsi (bone of the lower leg) of birds from the Göbekli Tepe site (from top to bottom): Eurasian jackdaw (Coloeus monedula), hooded crow (Corvus cornix), small duck (Anas crecca/Spatula querquedula), Chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar), medium-sized owl (Asio sp.).

Excavation at Gusir Höyük on the shores of Lake Gusir

CREDIT

J. Peters, LMU/SNSB-SPM

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JOURNAL

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s12520-023-01841-1 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Distinct modes and intensity of bird exploitation at the dawn of agriculture in the Upper Euphrates and Tigris River basins

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Sep-2023

First experimental study to propose a therapy to correct memory deficit caused by disorders in the fetal alcohol spectrum

Research conducted in a mouse model identifies the neurobiological mechanism responsible for alterations in the memory of young individuals exposed to alcohol during pregnancy and lactation. This study proposes a therapy that can reverse the deficit

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA - BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: INÉS GALLEGO, ANTONI PASTOR, ALBA GARCIA-BAOS, OLGA VALVERDE AND RAFAEL DE LA TORRE. CREDIT: UPF. view more 

CREDIT: UPF

A research team of the Department of Medicine and Life Sciences (MELIS) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) involving the Hospital del Mar Research Institute has for the first time, in mice, identified and validated the neurobiological mechanism and therapy to correct memory deficit in individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). These results pave the way for studying whether the mechanism is the same in humans, which would enable improving the diagnosis and treatment of affected individuals. 

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) includes a number of conditions suffered by infants who have been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy. The effects of FASD range from craniofacial morphological malformations or growth problems, in the most severe cases, to hyperactivity, emotional and motivational difficulties or defects in learning and memory, in the mildest cases. 

“In children of normal appearance, FASD is underdiagnosed and is often mistaken for hyperactivity or ADD”, explains Rafael de la Torre, coordinator of the Integrated Pharmacology and Systems Neuroscience Research Group at the Hospital del Mar Research Institute. “Since there is no diagnosis, there is no treatment, and symptomatic therapy is given to alleviate hyperactivity or other disorders such as anxiety”. 

The results of the study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, have allowed the researchers to observe that “exposure to alcohol need not be chronic for FASD to occur. Sporadic consumption ending in intoxication - getting drunk- is enough to observe alterations in memory, in mice”, explains Olga Valverde, study coordinator and director of the Research Group in Behavioural Neurobiology at the MELIS-UPF. 

The study shows that mice born to mothers that have consumed alcohol sporadically during pregnancy and lactation have a memory deficit that persists into adulthood. One of the reasons for this deficit is that alcohol affects the function of the endocannabinoid system, reducing the expression of the PPAR-𝛄 receptor. 

“The endocannabinoid system is greatly involved in learning and memory processes”, de la Torre explains. “That is why it is especially relevant that this decrease occurs during infancy, when the mice, male and female, are of learning age”. However, the reduction in PPAR-𝛄 does not occur throughout the brain. It is limited to the hippocampal astrocytes -cells that support neurons controlling functions such as their metabolism or the inflammation to which they are subjected- of the hippocampus.

After confirming the neurobiological mechanism by three different routes, the study also proposes an effective treatment with the drug pioglitazone, commonly used to control sugar and which stimulates PPAR receptors. According to the first author of the study, Alba Garcia-Baos, “manages to alleviate the cognitive memory deficits of individuals with FASD in infancy”. 

 

Optimism regarding studies in humans

The results of this study pave the way for studying the effects of other cognitive impairments caused by alcohol exposure during pregnancy. “In this work we have only studied alterations in memory, but there may be emotional, motivational or behavioural alterations related to FASD”, points out Valverde, who is also a full professor of Psychobiology at UPF. 

Although this study has been conducted in mice, the researcher is optimistic about confirming that this mechanism is replicated in humans “because we are two species of mammals that share many similarities”. In addition, if confirmed, “it would be relatively simple to carry out a study to validate whether the therapy we propose works in humans, since there are drugs that have similar effects to the ones we have used that are approved for use in children”.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Psychiatry

DOI

10.1038/s41380-023-02191-z 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

The role of PPAR-γ in memory deficits induced by prenatal and lactation alcohol exposure in mice

 

Origin of cultural learning: Babies imitate because they are imitated

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN

LMU study shows that babies learn to imitate others because they themselves are imitated by caregivers

People are constantly learning from others without even being aware of it. Social learning avoids laborious trial and error; the wheel does not have to be reinvented each time. But where does this ability come from, which forms the basis of cultural learning and consequently for the evolutionary success of the human species? A study led by Professor Markus Paulus.

Chair of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology at LMU, demonstrates that the ability has its roots in earliest childhood. “Children acquire their ability to imitate because they themselves are imitated by their caregivers,” says Markus Paulus.

Children are incredible imitators – thanks to their parents

For the study, the researchers looked at the interaction between mother and child over several months. The babies came into the lab for the first time at the age of 6 months, while their final visit was when they were 18 months old. As they engaged in various play situations, the interactions and imitations of mother and child were analyzed.

The longitudinal study shows that the more sensitive a mother was in her interactions with her six-month-old child and the more often she imitated the infant, the greater the child’s ability was at the age of 18 months to imitate others.

In the interaction between parents and child, mutual imitation is a sign of communication. Parents respond to the signals given by the child and reflect and amplify them. A mutual imitation of actions and gestures develops. “These experiences create connections between what the child feels and does on the one hand and what it sees on the other. Associations are formed. The child’s visual experience is connected to its own motor activity,” says Markus Paulus, explaining the neuro-cognitive process.

Children learn a variety of skills through imitation, such as how to use objects, cultural gestures like waving, and the acquisition of language. “Children are incredible imitators. Mimicry paves the way to their further development. Imitation is the start of the cultural process toward becoming human,” says Markus Paulus. In psychology, the theory that the ability to imitate is inborn held sway for a long time. The LMU study is further evidence that the ability is actually acquired.

 

The cultural transfer of knowledge is based on imitation

How well children learn to imitate others is crucially dependent on the sensitivity with which their parents respond to them. In this context, sensitivity is defined as the capability of a caregiver to pick up on the child’s signals and react promptly and appropriately to them. “The sensitivity of the mother is a predictor of how strongly she imitates her child,” says Dr. Samuel Essler, lead author of the study.

In addition, the study sheds light on what makes humans social beings, namely that our individual abilities only develop through interaction with others. Indeed, they owe their existence to the particular way in which humans raise their young.

“By being part of a social interaction culture, in which they are imitated, children learn to learn from others. Over the course of generations and millennia, this interplay has led to the cultural evolution of humans,” says Markus Paulus. “Through social learning, certain actions or techniques do not have to be constantly invented anew, but there is a cultural transfer of knowledge. Our results show that the ability to imitate, and thus cultural learning, is itself a product of cultural learning, in particular the parent-child interaction.”

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2023.08.084 

ARTICLE TITLE

The cultural basis of cultural evolution: Longitudinal evidence that infant imitation develops by being imitated

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Sep-2023

 

Sperm swimming is caused by the same patterns that are believed to dictate zebra stripes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

 

IMAGE: GRAPH view more 

CREDIT: HERMES GADÊLHA

Patterns of chemical interactions are thought to create patterns in nature such as stripes and spots. This new study shows that the mathematical basis of these patterns also governs how sperm tail moves.

The findings, published today in Nature Communications, reveal that flagella movement of, for example, sperm tails and cilia, follow the same template for pattern formation that was discovered by the famous mathematician Alan Turing. 

Flagellar undulations make stripe patterns in space-time, generating waves that travel along the tail to drive the sperm and microbes forward.

Alan Turing is most well-known for helping to break the enigma code during WWII. However he also developed a theory of pattern formation that predicted that chemical patterns may appear spontaneously with only two ingredients: chemicals spreading out (diffusing) and reacting together. Turing first proposed the so-called reaction-diffusion theory for pattern formation.

Turing helped to pave the way for a whole new type of enquiry using reaction-diffusion mathematics to understand natural patterns. Today, these chemical patterns first envisioned by Turing are called Turing patterns. Although not yet proven by experimental evidence, these patterns are thought to govern many patterns across nature, such as leopard spots, the whorl of seeds in the head of a sunflower, and patterns of sand on the beach. Turing’s theory can be applied to various fields, from biology and robotics to astrophysics. 

Mathematician Dr Hermes Gadêlha, head of the Polymaths Lab, and his PhD student James Cass conducted this research in the School of Engineering Mathematics and Technology at the University of Bristol. Gadêlha explained: “Live spontaneous motion of flagella and cilia is observed everywhere in nature, but little is known about how they are orchestrated.

“They are critical in health and disease, reproduction, evolution, and survivorship of almost every aquatic microorganism in earth."

The team was inspired by recent observations in low viscosity fluids that the surrounding environment plays a minor role on the flagellum. They used mathematical modelling, simulations, and data fitting to show that flagellar undulations can arise spontaneously without the influence of their fluid environment.

Mathematically this is equivalent to Turing’s reaction-diffusion system that was first proposed for chemical patterns.

In the case of sperm swimming, chemical reactions of molecular motors power the flagellum, and bending movement diffuses along the tail in waves. The level of generality between visual patterns and patterns of movement is striking and unexpected, and shows that only two simple ingredients are needed to achieve highly complex motion.

Dr Gadêlha added: “We show that this mathematical 'recipe’ is followed by two very distant species – bull sperm and Chlamydomonas (a green algae that is used as a model organism across science), suggesting that nature replicates similar solutions.

“Travelling waves emerge spontaneously even when the flagellum is uninfluenced by the surrounding fluid. This means that the flagellum has a fool-proof mechanism to enable swimming in low viscosity environments, which would otherwise be impossible for aquatic species.

“It is the first time that model simulations compare well with experimental data.

“We are grateful to the researchers that made their data freely available, without which we would not have been able to proceed with this mathematical study.”

These findings may be used in future to better understand fertility issues associated with abnormal flagellar motion and other ciliopathies; diseases caused by ineffective cilia in human bodies.

This could also be further explored for robotic applications, artificial muscles, and animated materials, as the team discovered a simple 'mathematical recipe' for making patterns of movement.

Dr Gadêlha is also a member of the SoftLab at Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), where he uses pattern formation mathematics to innovate the next generation of soft-robots.

“In 1952, Turing unlocked the reaction-diffusion basis of chemical patterns,” said Dr Gadêlha. “We show that the ‘atom’ of motion in the cellular world, the flagellum, uses Turing's template to shape, instead, patterns of movement driving tail motion that pushes sperm forwards.

“Although this is a step closer to mathematically decode spontaneous animation in nature, our reaction-diffusion model is far too simple to fully capture all complexity. Other models may exist, in the space of models, with equal, or even better, fits with experiments, that we simply have no knowledge of their existence yet, and thus substantial more research is still needed!”

The study was completed using funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and DTP studentship for James Cass PhD

The numerical work was carried out using the computational and data storage facilities of the Advanced Computing Research Centre, at the University of Bristol.

  

Stripe patterns

Stripe patterns in space time

CREDIT

Hermes Gadêlha

video [VIDEO] | EurekAlert! 

Paper:

‘The reaction-diffusion basis of animated patterns in eukaryotic flagella’ by James Cass and Dr Hermes Bloomfield-Gadêlha in Nature Communications.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

The reaction-diffusion basis of animated patterns in eukaryotic flagella

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Sep-2023

 

Fish reveal cause of altered human facial development

Impact of substances on zebrafish embryos shows how the prenatal development of human facial features might also be affected

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

 

IMAGE: THIS ZEBRAFISH LARVA HAS BEEN GENETICALLY MODIFIED SO THAT THE BONE-FORMING CELLS IN THE FACE EMIT A GREEN FLUORESCENCE. NORMALLY, THEY ARE COLORLESS AND TRANSPARENT, THUS ALMOST INVISIBLE AT THIS STAGE. AS EMBRYOS, THEIR HEAD AND TAIL START TO FORM AFTER JUST 16 HOURS. AS ADULTS, THEY GROW TO BE JUST 2-5 CENTIMETERS LONG. view more 

CREDIT: 2023 LIU ET AL.

Some substances in medicines, household items and the environment are known to affect prenatal child development. In a study published in Toxicological Sciences, researchers tested the effects of five drugs (including caffeine and the blood thinner warfarin) on the growth of zebrafish embryos. They found that all five had the same effect, impairing the migration of bone-forming cells which resulted in the onset of facial malformation. Zebrafish embryos grow quickly, are transparent and develop outside of the parent’s body, making them ideal for studying early development. A zebrafish-based system could be used to easily screen for potentially harmful substances, reducing animal testing on mammals and supporting parents-to-be when making choices for themselves and their baby.

Whether from birth or through events which happen in life, many people have differences in their facial appearance. Worldwide, over one-third of all congenital anomalies relate to the development of a child’s head or facial bones — their craniofacial features — a common example being having a cleft lip and/or palate. The exact cause of craniofacial differences is not fully understood, but researchers currently think that multiple factors may be involved. This includes genetics, the gestational parent’s environment, their diet, some illnesses and certain drugs or chemicals.

Teratogens are substances known to disturb the growth of an embryo or fetus; for example, pregnant people are advised to avoid alcohol and nicotine. Potential teratogens are typically screened for using animals such as rodents and rabbits. But researchers are looking for alternative methods which are quicker, cheaper and reduce the need for testing on mammals.

This is where zebrafish come in. These tiny, 2-5 centimeter freshwater fish grow very quickly, developing as much in a day as a human embryo would in a month. “Zebrafish embryos are transparent and grow outside the mother, so we can monitor the behavior of live cells as they develop,” said Toru Kawanishi, project assistant professor at the University of Tokyo’s Department of Biological Sciences at the time of the study. Within the past 10 years, several research projects have shown that zebrafish can effectively be used to check for teratogens. However, the exact mechanisms by which teratogens impair or alter typical embryonic development is still being investigated.

The team focused on a specific genetic marker for a group of cells involved in craniofacial development in both mammals and fish. In humans, these are known to become parts of the nose and jaw. “We manipulated the genome of zebrafish embryos and made bone-forming cells fluorescently visible in green. We then treated them with chemicals that are known to cause facial defects in human newborns, and tracked the trajectories of the bone-forming cells throughout embryonic stages,” explained Kawanishi.

The team tested five chemicals: valproic acid (used to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders), warfarin (an anticoagulant), salicylic acid (popular in skin ointments), caffeine and methotrexate (used in chemotherapy). They saw that, as expected, all the chemicals tested caused various degrees of craniofacial anomalies 96 hours after fertilization. However, they were surprised by the mechanism which caused this to happen and how quickly it started.

“Bone- and cartilage-forming cells in the head, called cranial neural crest cells (CNCCs), generally move a long distance from where they are first formed around the back of the neck, to their intended destinations such as the jaw or nose,” explained Kawanishi. “We were surprised that regardless of how each chemical acts on cells molecularly, impaired migration of bone-forming cells in early development was responsible for the onset of facial malformation for all the five chemicals. We could see signs of this within just 24 hours, at a point where zebrafish and mammalian embryos share very similar morphological and molecular characteristics.”

The results indicate the potential existence of a general mechanism by which teratogenic chemicals limit movement of CNCCs early on in embryos, causing the development of facial differences. The researchers extrapolate that facial differences caused by other substances might also follow the same mechanism. “We will aim to reveal the molecular mechanism underlying the impaired cell migration, to understand why different chemicals lead to the shared defects in cell migration,” said Kawanishi. The team proposes using this zebrafish-based system as another way to test for cross-species teratogens, so that parents and medical practitioners can be made aware to limit or avoid them.

These images show the development of a zebrafish’s craniofacial cartilage (via fluorescent staining) 96 hours post fertilization, comparing typical development (on the far left) with the effect of the five drugs tested.

These fluorescent images of live zebrafish embryos show the movement, assembly and growth of cartilage -forming cells at 48, 72 and 96 hours post fertilization.

CREDIT

2023 Liu et al.

Paper Title:

Shujie Liu, Toru Kawanishi, Atsuko Shimada, Naohiro Ikeda, Masayuki Yamane, Hiroyuki Takeda, Junichi Tasaki. “Identification of an adverse outcome pathway (AOP) for chemical-induced craniofacial anomalies using the transgenic zebrafish model” Toxicological Sciences, 2023, 1-14. DOI: 10.1093/toxsci/kfad078.

Declaration of competing interests

S.L., N.I., M.Y., and J.T. are employed by the company Kao. The author/authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Useful Links :

Graduate School of Science: https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Takeda Lab: https://www.bs.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~hassei/English/research%20E/research%20E.html

About the University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en.
 

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JOURNAL

Toxicological Sciences

DOI

10.1093/toxsci/kfad078 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Identification of an adverse outcome pathway (AOP) for chemical-induced craniofacial anomalies using the transgenic zebrafish model

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Sep-2023

COI STATEMENT

S.L., N.I., M.Y., and J.T. are employed by the company Kao. The author/authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Climate change filtered out resource-acquisitive plants in a temperate grassland

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

Evidence is mounting that climate change is triggering biodiversity loss, changing community composition and ecosystem functions. However, the intricate mechanisms underpinning ecological processes remain an enigma, motivating researchers to dissect the intricate web of interactions.

Recently, in a paper published in Science China Life Sciences, a Chinese team from Peking University focused on resource-use strategies, revealing how species with different resource-use strategies would respond to climate change, and how the responses may influence community-level productivity.

 “We usually thought more species would mean more productivity. But what we’re seeing here is that species richness and functional diversity declined significantly while productivity did not significantly decline.” said Professor Wang, the lead researcher in the study. To dive into the reason behind this puzzle, the team classified species into different functional types according to plant functional traits. Resource-acquisitive plants are featured by high leaf nutrient content, large specific leaf area, and a low investment on leaf structure. In contrast, resource-conservative plant species exhibited a contrasting array of attributes.

As the climate in the studied grassland became drier and warmer, resource-acquisitive plants responded rapidly to limited water and declined their species richness and functional diversity, leading to community-level diversity decreased. In the meanwhile, resource-conservative plants, the dominating species in this grassland community, remained relatively stable, contributing to the stable productivity.

The results line up with what scientists have hypothesized before – that community-level productivity is determined by dominant species and insensitive to the decline of less abundant species. Nonetheless, Professor Wang throws in a curveball of caution, “Our findings do not mean that rare species do not matter. We can't assume that ecosystem productivity will always stay stable if the climate keeps getting warmer and drier. A continuous loss of diversity could tip the balance.”

This research enriches our understanding of plant dynamics in the face of climate change, offering insights into the nuanced interplay between resource strategies and ecological functions.

 

See the article:

Climate change filtered out resource-acquisitive plants in a temperate grassland in Inner Mongolia, China

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-022-2338-1

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JOURNAL

Science China Life Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s11427-022-2338-1 

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