Molecular & isotopic evidence of milk, meat & plants in prehistoric food systems
COOKBOOK COMING SOON
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL


IMAGE: EXAMPLES OF POTSHERDS ANALYSED view more
CREDIT: KATE GRILLO

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, with colleagues from the University of Florida, provide the first evidence for diet and subsistence practices of ancient East African pastoralists.

The development of pastoralism is known to have transformed human diets and societies in grasslands worldwide. Cattle-herding has been (and still is) the dominant way of life across the vast East African grasslands for thousands of years.

This is indicated by numerous large and highly fragmentary animal bone assemblages found at archaeological sites across the region, which demonstrate the importance of cattle, sheep and goat to these ancient people.

Today, people in these areas, such as the Maasai and Samburu of Kenya, live off milk and milk products (and sometimes blood) from their animals, gaining 60 - 90 percent of their calories from milk.

Milk is crucial to these herders and milk shortages during droughts or dry seasons increase vulnerabilities to malnutrition, and result in increased consumption of meat and marrow nutrients.

Yet we do not have any direct evidence for how long people in East Africa have been milking their cattle, how herders prepared their food or what else their diet may have consisted of.

Significantly though, we do know they have developed the C-14010 lactase persistence allele, which must have resulted from consumption of whole milk or lactose-containing milk products. This suggests there must be a long history of reliance on milk products in the area.

To address this question, the researchers examined ancient potsherds from four sites in Kenya and Tanzania, covering a 4000-year timeframe (c 5000 to 1200 BP), known as the Pastoral Neolithic, using a combined chemical and isotopic approach to identify and quantify the food residues found within the vessels. This involves extracting and identifying the fatty acids, residues of animal fats absorbed into the pot wall during cooking.

The findings, published today in the journal PNAS, showed that by far the majority of the shards yielded evidence for ruminant (cattle, sheep or goat) meat, bones, marrow and fat processing, and some cooking of plants, probably in the form of stews.

This is entirely consistent with the animal bone assemblages from the sites sampled. Across this entire time frame, potsherds preserving milk residues were present at low frequencies, but this is very similar to modern pastoralist groups, such as the heavily milk-reliant Samburu, who cook meat and bones in ceramic pots but milk their cattle into gourds and wooden bowls, which rarely preserve at archaeological sites.

In the broader sense, this work provides insights into the long-term development of pastoralist foodways in east Africa and the evolution of milk-centred husbandry systems. The time frame of the findings of at least minor levels of milk processing provides a relatively long period (around 4,000 years) in which selection for the C-14010 lactase persistence allele may have occurred within multiple groups in eastern Africa, which supports genetic estimates. Future work will expand to studies of other sites within the region.

Dr Julie Dunne, from the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry, who led the study, said: "How exciting it is to be able to use chemical techniques to extract thousands of year-old foodstuffs from pots to find out what these early East African herders were cooking.

"This work shows the reliance of modern-day herders, managing vast herds of cattle, on meat and milk-based products, has a very long history in the region."

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Neolithic genomes from modern-day Switzerland indicate parallel ancient societies

Genetic analysis of 96 ancient individuals traces the arrival and demographic structure of peoples with Steppe-related ancestry into late Neolithic, early Bronze Age Switzerland
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY


IMAGE: TOP VIEW OF THE DOLMEN OF OBERBIPP, ONE OF THE LARGEST BURIAL SITES IN THE STUDY. IN THIS STUDY, RESEARCHERS ANALYZE 96 ANCIENT GENOMES TO TRACE THE ARRIVAL AND... view more  CREDIT: URS DARDEL, ARCHÄOLOGISCHER DIENST DES KANTON BERN (SWITZERLAND)

Genetic research throughout Europe shows evidence of drastic population changes near the end of the Neolithic period, as shown by the arrival of ancestry related to pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But the timing of this change and the arrival and mixture process of these peoples, particularly in Central Europe, is little understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers analyze 96 ancient genomes, providing new insights into the ancestry of modern Europeans.

Scientists sequence almost one hundred ancient genomes from Switzerland

With Neolithic settlements found everywhere from lake shore and bog environments to inner alpine valleys and high mountain passes, Switzerland's rich archeological record makes it a prime location for studies of population history in Central Europe. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, the emergence of archaeological finds from Corded Ware Complex cultural groups (CWC) coincides with the arrival of new ancestry components from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, but exactly when these new peoples arrived and how they mixed with indigenous Europeans remains unclear.

To find out, an international team led by researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Bern and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) sequenced the genomes of 96 individuals from 13 Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in Switzerland, southern Germany and the Alsace region of France. They detect the arrival of this new ancestry as early as 2800 BCE, and suggest that genetic dispersal was a complex process, involving the gradual mixture of parallel, highly genetically structured societies. The researchers also identified one of the oldest known Europeans that was lactose tolerant, dating to roughly 2100 BCE.

Slow genetic turnover indicates highly structured societies

"Remarkably, we identified several female individuals without any detectable steppe-related ancestry up to 1000 years after this ancestry arrives in the region," says lead author Anja Furtwängler of the University of Tübingen's Institute for Archeological Sciences. Evidence from genetic analysis and stable isotopes suggest a patrilocal society, in which males stayed local to where they were born and females came from distant families that did not carry steppe ancestry.

These results show that CWC was a relatively homogenous population that occupied large parts of Central Europe in the early Bronze Age, but they also show that populations without steppe-related ancestry existed parallel to the CWC cultural groups for hundreds of years.

"Since the parents of the mobile females in our study couldn't have had steppe-related ancestry either, it remains to be shown where in Central Europe such populations were present, possibly in the Alpine mountain valleys that were less connected to the lower lands" says Johannes Krause, director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at MPI-SHH and senior author of the study. The researchers hope that further studies of this kind will help to illuminate the cultural interactions that precipitated the transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze age in Central Europe.

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FOOD TV 
Study sheds light on unique culinary traditions of prehistoric hunter-gatherers


UNIVERSITY OF YORK


IMAGE: POTTERY FRAGMENTS FOUND AT THE HAVNØ KITCHEN MIDDEN, NORTHERN DENMARK. view more CREDIT: HARRY ROBSON, UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Hunter-gatherer groups living in the Baltic between seven and a half and six thousand years ago had culturally distinct cuisines, analysis of ancient pottery fragments has revealed.

An international team of researchers analysed over 500 hunter-gatherer vessels from 61 archaeological sites throughout the Baltic region.

They found striking contrasts in food preferences and culinary practices between different groups - even in areas where there was a similar availability of resources. Pots were used for storing and preparing foods ranging from marine fish, seal and beaver to wild boar, bear, deer, freshwater fish hazelnuts and plants.
The findings suggest that the culinary tastes of ancient people were not solely dictated by the foods available in a particular area, but also influenced by the traditions and habits of cultural groups, the authors of the study say.

A lead author of the study, Dr Harry Robson from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "People are often surprised to learn that hunter-gatherers used pottery to store, process and cook food, as carrying cumbersome ceramic vessels seems inconsistent with a nomadic life-style.

"Our study looked at how this pottery was used and found evidence of a rich variety of foods and culinary traditions in different hunter-gatherer groups."

The researchers also identified unexpected evidence of dairy products in some of the pottery vessels, suggesting that some hunter-gatherer groups were interacting with early farmers to obtain this resource.

Dr Robson added: "The presence of dairy fats in several hunter-gatherer vessels was an unexpected example of culinary 'cultural fusion'. The discovery has implications for our understanding of the transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to early farming and demonstrates that this commodity was either exchanged or perhaps even looted from nearby farmers."

Lead author of the study, Dr Blandine Courel from the British Museum, added: "Despite a common biota that provided lots of marine and terrestrial resources for their livelihoods, hunter-gatherer communities around the Baltic Sea basin did not use pottery for the same purpose.

"Our study suggests that culinary practices were not influenced by environmental constraints but rather were likely embedded in some long-standing culinary traditions and cultural habits."

The study, led by the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum, the University of York and the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Germany), used molecular and isotopic techniques to analyse the fragments of pottery.

Senior author, Professor Oliver Craig from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "Chemical analysis of the remains of foods and natural products prepared in pottery has already revolutionized our understanding of early agricultural societies, we are now seeing these methods being rolled out to study prehistoric hunter-gatherer pottery. The results suggest that they too had complex and culturally distinct cuisines."

Organic residue analysis shows sub-regional patterns in the use of pottery by Northern European hunter-gatherers is published in Royal Society Open Science. The research was funded by the European Research Council through a grant awarded to the British Museum.

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50,000 YEARS AGO ICELAND WAS POPULATED?!

Icelandic DNA jigsaw-puzzle brings new knowledge about Neanderthals

An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago
AARHUS UNIVERSITY


IMAGE: DNA OF ICELANDERS PROVIDES NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT EXTINCT HUMAN SPECIES view more  CREDIT: ASTRID REITZEL, AAARHUS UNIVERSITY

An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago. The researchers found the new pieces of the puzzle by trawling the genomes of more than 27,000 Icelanders. Among other things, they discovered that Neanderthal women gave birth when they were older than the Homo-Sapien women at that time, and Neanderthal men became fathers when they were younger.

It is well-known that a group of our ancestors left Africa and, about 50,000 years ago, met Neanderthals in Europe, and then had children with them.

Now, a new analysis shows that the Neanderthals may have had children with another extinct species of human (Denisovans), before they met Homo Sapiens, and that these children have been fertile and transferred genes from both species further on to modern people.

The analysis also shows that the Neanderthal women living 100,000 - 500,000 years ago on average became mothers at a later age than the contemporary Homo-Sapien women living in Africa. On the other hand, Neanderthal men fathered at a younger age than their Homo-Sapien cousins in Africa.

How can an analysis show all that?

Neanderthals may well be extinct, but small pieces of their DNA live on in us. All living people outside Africa have up to two per cent Neanderthal genes in their DNA.

However, this two per cent is scattered as small fragments in our genomes, and not all individuals have inherited the same fragments. The fragments are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and if they are put together correctly, they will show a picture of the genome in the Neanderthal population that the modern Homo Sapiens had children with.

New method to find the pieces

First, of course, we have to find these pieces. And this is precisely what the group of researchers from Denmark, Iceland and Germany did to produce their results, published today in the scientific journal Nature.

One of them, Laurits Skov, postdoc from the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) at Aarhus University, has developed a method for tracing Neanderthal fragments in our DNA. Laurits and PhD student Moisès Coll Macià took the method to Iceland, where the genetics firm deCODE has amassed genetic data and health information for more than half of the Icelandic population.

"We spent several months at deCODE in Reykjavik on what can be called field studies for a computational biologist. By combining my method with deCODE's data and expertise, we have analysed 27,566 genomes, and this makes our study 10-times larger than previous studies of Neanderthal genes in human DNA," says Laurits Skov.

Together, the many fragments account for approximately half of a complete Neanderthal genome.

Denisovan genes gone astray?

However, the researchers also found significant fragments of genetic material from another archaic species of human, Denisovans, in the DNA of the Icelanders, and this was something of a surprise. Up to now, Denisovan genes have primarily been found in Australian Aborigines, East Asians and people in Papua New Guinea. So how did these genes end up in Islanders' DNA? And when?

Based on the distribution of genes and mutations, the researchers came up with two possible explanations.

Either Neanderthals had children with Denisovans before they met the Homo Sapiens. This would mean that the Neanderthals with whom Homo Sapiens had children were already hybrids, who transferred both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes to the children.

"Up to now, we believed that the Neanderthals modern people have had children with were "pure" Neanderthals. It's true that researchers have found the remnants of a hybrid between Denisovans and Neanderthals in a cave in East Asia, but we have not known whether there were more of these hybrids and whether, thousands of years later, they had children with modern humans," explains Professor Mikkel Heide Schierup from BiRC.

Or Homo Sapiens met Denisovans long before they met Neanderthals. So far, it has been thought that modern humans met Neanderthals and had children with them first, and not until tens of thousands of years later did they have children with Denisovans.

"Both explanations are equally likely, and both explanations will be scientific news," says Mikkel Heide Schierup.

Neandertal genes of little importance

The study also shows that the Neanderthal DNA has no great importance for modern humans.

"We have previously thought that many of the Neanderthal variants previously been found in modern human DNA were associated with an increased risk of diseases. However, our study shows that the human gene variants located directly beside the Neanderthal genes are better explanations for the risk. We have also found something that can only be explained by Neanderthal genes, but this doesn't mean that much," says Mikkel Heide Schierup.

The properties and risks of diseases that can be linked to Neanderthal DNA are: slightly lower risk of prostate cancer, lower levels of haemoglobin, lower body length (one millimetre) and slightly faster blood plasma clotting.

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Giant teenage shark from the Dinosaur-era

Fossil vertebrae give insights into growth and extinction of an enigmatic shark group

AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TEENAGERS EAT
UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA

IMAGE: HYPOTHETICAL OUTLINES OF †PTYCHODUS SHOWING THE MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM SIZE ESTIMATIONS FOR THE SUB-ADULT SPECIMEN FROM SPAIN. view more  CREDIT: © PATRICK L. JAMBURA

In 1996, palaeontologists found skeletal remains of a giant shark at the northern coast of Spain, near the city Santander. Here, the coast comprises meter high limestone walls that were deposited during the Cretaceous period, around 85 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the world. Scientists from the University of Vienna examined this material now and were able to assign the remains to the extinct shark family, Ptychodontidae, a group that was very specious and successful in the Cretaceous but suddenly vanished mysteriously before the infamous end-Cretaceous extinction event.

Shark vertebrae are rare in the fossil record, but precious

Ptychodontid sharks are mainly known from their teeth, which are flattened and allowed them to crush hard-shelled prey, like bivalves or ammonites, similar to some of today's ray species. However, the find of Spain consists only of parts of the vertebral column and placoid scales (teeth-like scales), which are much rarer than teeth in the fossil record.

In contrast to teeth, shark vertebrae bear important information about a species' life history, such as size, growth and age, which are saved as growth rings inside the vertebra, like in the stem of trees. Statistical methods and the comparison with extant species, allowed the scientists to decode these data and reconstruct the ecology of this enigmatic shark group.

Ptychodontid sharks grew big and old

"Based on the model, we calculated a size of 4-7m and an age of 30 years for the examined shark. Astonishing about this data is the fact that this shark was not yet mature when it died despite its rather old age." states Patrick L. Jambura, lead author of the study. Sharks follow an asymptotic growth curve, meaning that they grow constantly until maturation and after that, the growth curve flattens resulting from a reduced growth rate. "However, this shark doesn't show any signs of flattenings or inflections in the growth profile, meaning that it was not mature, a teenager if you want. This suggests that these sharks even grew much larger (and older)!"

The study suggests that ptychodontid sharks grew very slow, matured very late, but also showed high longevity and reached enormous body sizes. "This might have been a main contributor to their success, but also, eventually, demise."

Do modern sharks face a similar fate?

Many living sharks, like the whale shark or the great white shark, show very similar life history traits, a combination of low recruitment and late maturation, which makes them vulnerable to anthropogenic threats, like overfishing and pollution.

"It might be the case that similar to today's sharks, ptychodontid sharks faced changes in their environment, to which they could not adapt quick enough and, ultimately, led to their demise before even dinosaurs went extinct. However, unlike in the Cretaceous period, it is up to us now, to prevent this from happening to modern sharks again and to save the last survivors of this ancient and charismatic group of fishes!"

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Publication in PLOS ONE

Patrick L. Jambura & Jürgen Kriwet (2020) Articulated remains of the extinct shark, Ptychodus (Elasmobranchii, Ptychodontidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Spain provide insights into gigantism, growth rate and life history of ptychodontid sharks. In PLOS ONE

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231544

Archaeologists verify Florida's Mound Key as location of elusive Spanish fort

FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

IMAGE: SPANISH HISTORICAL RECORDS NAMED FLORIDA'S MOUND KEY, THE CAPITAL OF THE CALUSA KINGDOM, AS THE SITE OF FORT SAN ANTÓN DE CARLOS, HOME OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST NORTH AMERICAN... view more
CREDIT: VICTOR THOMPSON

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Florida and Georgia archaeologists have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida's Gulf Coast.

Archaeologists and historians have long suspected that the fort, named for the Catholic patron saint of lost things, was located on Mound Key. Researchers have been searching for concrete evidence in the area since 2013.

"Before our work, the only information we had was from Spanish documents, which suggested that the Calusa capital was on Mound Key and that Fort San Antón de Carlos was there, too," said William Marquardt, curator emeritus of South Florida archaeology and ethnography at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "Archaeologists and historians had visited the site and collected pottery from the surface, but until we found physical evidence of the Calusa king's house and the fort, we could not be absolutely certain."

The Calusa were one of the most politically complex groups of fisher-gatherer-hunters in the world and resisted European colonization for nearly 200 years, Marquardt said. They are often considered to be the first "shell collectors," using shells as tools, utensils and jewelry and discarding the fragments in enormous mounds. They also constructed massive structures known as watercourts, which acted as fish corrals, providing food to fuel large-scale construction projects and a growing population.

The Calusa kingdom controlled most of South Florida before being devastated by European disease. Researchers believe that by the time the Spanish turned Florida over to the British, any remaining Calusa had already fled to Cuba.

Researchers continue to question how the Spanish survived on Mound Key and met their daily needs despite unreliable shipments of minimal supplies from the Caribbean and strained relations with the Calusa - whose surplus supplies they needed for survival. The only Spanish fort known to be built on a shell mound, Fort San Antón de Carlos was abandoned by 1569 after the Spaniards' brief alliance with the Calusa deteriorated, causing the Calusa to leave the island and the Spanish to follow shortly after.

"Despite being the most powerful society in South Florida, the Calusa were inexorably drawn into the broader world economic system by the Spaniards," Marquardt said. "However, by staying true to their values and way of life, the Calusa showed a resiliency unmatched by most other Native societies in the Southeastern United States."

Researchers from the University of Florida, the University of Georgia and students from UGA's archaeological field school used a combination of remote sensing, coring, ground-penetrating radar and excavations to uncover the walls of the fort and a few artifacts, including ceramic shards and beads.

The fort is also the earliest-known North American example of "tabby" architecture, a rough form of shell concrete.

"Tabby," also called "tabbi" or "tapia," is made by burning shells to create lime, which is then mixed with sand, ash, water and broken shells. At Mound Key, the Spaniards used primitive tabby as a mortar to stabilize the posts in the walls of their wooden structures. Tabby was later used by the English in their American colonies and in Southern plantations.

Marquardt said that while the team uncovered a substantial amount of the walls they found, it is still only a small sample of the entire fort, and there is still much more to learn and excavate.

Discovery of the fort has the potential to reduce archaeologists' dependence on Spanish reports for information about ancient Floridian history, he said.

"Seeing the straight walls of the fort emerge, just inches below the surface, was quite exciting to us," Marquardt said. "Not only was this a confirmation of the location of the fort, but it shows the promise of Mound Key to shed light on a time in Florida's - and America's - history that is very poorly known."

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The Florida Museum's Karen Walker, Amanda Roberts Thompson of UGA and Lee Newsom of Flagler College also co-authored the study.

Examining heart extractions in ancient Mesoamerica

New findings on procedures and meanings of human heart sacrifices in Mesoamerica
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS

IMAGE: HUMAN HEART SACRIFICES IN MESOAMERICA view more
CREDIT: CINVESTAV UNIDAD MÉRIDA
Sacrificial rituals featuring human heart extraction were a prevalent religious practice throughout ancient Mesoamerican societies. Intended as a means of appeasing and honoring certain deities, sacrifices served as acts of power and intimidation as well as demonstrations of devotion and gratitude. Human sacrifices were highly structured, complex rituals performed by elite members of society, and the ceremonies included a myriad of procedures imbued with symbolic significance.

The specific techniques performed, the instrumentation utilized, and the underlying mythology motivating sacrifices varied across civilizations. Given the diversity of sacrificial rituals throughout Mesoamerica, Vera Tiesler and Guilhem Olivier assert an interdisciplinary approach incorporating scientific and humanistic evidence is needed in order to gain more nuanced insights into the procedural elements and the religious implications of human sacrifice during the Classic and Postclassic periods.

In the study, "Open Chests and Broken Hearts: Ritual Sequences and Meanings of Human Heart Sacrifice in Mesoamerica," published in Current Anthropology, Tiesler and Olivier conduct an anatomical analysis of skeletal evidence and compare it with systematically checked historical sources and over 200 instances of ceremonial heart extraction in codices. Focusing on the location of openings created in the chest to allow for the removal of a victim's heart and blood, the authors examine the resulting fractures and marks in articulated skeletons to infer about the nature of the entry wound and the potential instrumentation used.

The breadth of source material and the multitude of disciplinary approaches has led to debate among scholars. While the archaeological record provides evidence of these ceremonies, less tangible elements of the rituals--such as the symbolism of these processes--may be harder to discern. Descriptions of human sacrifice and heart extraction can likewise be found in written witness testimonies and in Mesoamerican iconography. However, witness accounts were often inconsistent, especially concerning the position of the extraction site.

Utilizing forensic data in conjunction with an analysis of ethnohistorical accounts, the authors detail three distinct heart extraction methods: cutting directly under the ribs (subdiaphragmatic thoracotomy); making an incision between two ribs (intercostal thoracotomy); or by horizontally severing the sternum in order to access the heart (transverse bilateral thoracotomy). While previous research indicates subdiaphragmatic thoracotomy was a common practice, Tiesler and Olivier expand upon the existing literature by providing reconstructions of intercostal thoracotomy and transverse bilateral thoracotomy.

In addition to providing a more comprehensive understanding of extraction techniques and devices, the study reveals new interpretations of the relationship between thoracotomy procedures and conceptualizations of the human body as a source of "vitalizing matter," or food for the gods. Hearts and blood were offered as sustenance to deities representing the sun and the earth in recognition of their sacrifices during the creation of the universe. Data--including linguistic analysis of ancient Mesoamerican terminology--reinforce suggestions that these rites served as acts of obligation, reciprocation, and re-enactment.

The interdisciplinary nature of the study enables future research by offering a framework for analyzing sacrificial rituals in other ancient societies, including ancient civilizations in the Andes and India.

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Key words: human heart sacrifice, ritual violence, Aztec, Maya, cosmic mountain, Mesoamerica, cosmology.

Short bios

Vera Tiesler is a research professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mexico. She studies bioarchaeology and burial traditions in ancient Mesoamerica. Relevant co-edited publications include New Perspectives in Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments among the Ancient Maya, and Smoke, Flames, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice.

Guilhem Olivier is a research professor at the Institute of Historical Research at the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México. Specialized in Mesoamerican religion, he has authored Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca; Cacería, sacrificio y poder en Mesoamérica: Tras las huellas de Mixcoatl; his co-edited anthologies include El sacrificio humano en la tradición religiosa mesoamericana.

What's the best way to identify male hemp seedlings?

More accurate sex determination could increase yields and lower price of CBD
EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

IMAGE: A NEW STUDY ASSESSED THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PRIMER PAIRS AT DETERMINING THE SEX OF HEMP SEEDLINGS. SHOWN IS AN IMMATURE INDUSTRIAL HEMP PLANT. view more
CREDIT: ALLISON NALESNIK, SALISBURY UNIVERSITY

Bethesda, MD - The surge in cannabidiol (CBD) popularity means more farmers are growing non-intoxicating strains of cannabis, or hemp, for CBD production. This new market has led to commercial genetic tests for early determination of hemp plant sex. However, a new study has found that these tests may not all produce accurate results.

CBD is used as an alternative treatment for pain and anxiety and various medical conditions. Unfertilized female cannabis plants produce high amounts of the CBD precursor in their flowers, making it important to identify and eliminate male plants at the seedling stage.

"The results from our undergraduate-led project can help hemp growers make accurate sex determination of seedlings," said Allison Nalesnik, senior undergraduate student at Salisbury University. "This could help increase the yield of CBD, which should reduce prices for the public."

Nalesnik was scheduled to present this research at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting in San Diego this month. Though the meeting, to be held in conjunction with the 2020 Experimental Biology conference, was canceled in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the research team's abstract was published in this month's issue of The FASEB Journal.

Commercially available genetic tests use DNA markers known as primer pairs to identify male plants weeks before this could be determined visually. This helps farmers avoid spending time and money on growing plants that don't produce flowers and that could potentially lower CBD production by fertilizing female plants.

The new study was conducted through a molecular genetics course offered at Salisbury University. Over the course of a semester, students in the course followed identical protocols to determine the sex of 13 hemp plants. They collectively assessed the effectiveness of three commercially available primer pairs using modern genetics equipment and techniques.

"Two of the primer pairs -- SCAR119 and MADC2 -- were effective for determining the sex of cannabis seedlings," said Nalesnik. "The ineffective primer set would need to be tested further to more confidently say whether or not it is actually scientifically useful."

Next steps for this research include investigating DNA markers that are only found on the male chromosome to see if these offer a more efficient way to determine the sex of hemp seedlings.

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Contact the media team for more information.

Images and animations available.

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Big data reveals we're running out of time to save environment and ourselves

Technological advances will not help the world unless they lead to action

UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

IMAGE: EARTH DAY 2020 THIS YEAR WAS NOT JUST ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DECLINE BUT THE ADDITIONAL THREAT OF A PANDEMIC. view more
CREDIT: GLOBAL FOREST WATCH TIMELINE PHOTOS
The use of big data can help scientists' chart not only the degradation of the environment but can be part of the solution to achieve sustainability, according to a new commentary paper.

The paper, 'Opportunities for big data in conservation and sustainability', published today in Nature Communications, said increased computing speeds and data storage had grown the volume of big data in the last 40 years, but the planet was still facing serious decline.

Lead author Dr Rebecca Runting from the University of Melbourne's School of Geography says that while we currently have an unprecedented ability to generate, store, access and analyse data about the environment, these technological advances will not help the world unless they lead to action.

"Big data analyses must be closely linked to environmental policy and management," Dr Runting said. "For example, many large companies already possess the methodological, technical, and computational capacity to develop solutions, so it is paramount that new developments and resources are shared timely with government, and in the spirit of 'open data'."

Commentators noted that 2.3 million km2 of forest was lost over the years 2000 to 2012 and that dynamic marine and coastal ecosystems have revealed similar declines. An analysis of over 700,000 satellite images shows that Earth has lost more than 20,000 km2 of tidal flats since 1984.

"In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently seeing governments making rapid (health) decisions based on fairly sophisticated data analysis," Dr Runting said. "There may be opportunities to learn from this and achieve a similarly tight coupling of analysis and decision-making in the environmental sector."

Co-author Professor James Watson from the University of Queensland said with platforms like Google Earth Engine and the capacity of satellites to track and send information quickly to computers, big data was capable of identifying eco-health risks globally.

"What the big data revolution has helped us understand is the environment is often doing worse than what we thought it was. The more we map and analyse, the more we find the state of the environment, albeit Antarctic ice sheets, wetlands, or forests, is dire. Big data tells us we are running out of time," Professor Watson said.

"The good news is the big data revolution can help us better understand risk. For example, we can use data to better understand where future ecosystem degradation will take place and where these interact with wildlife trade, so as to map pandemic risk."

Dr Runting said big data has been pivotal in quantifying alarming spatial and temporal trends across Earth. For example, an automated vessel tracking and monitoring system is being used to predict illegal fishing activity in real-time.

"This has allowed governments quickly investigate particular vessels that may be undertaking illegal fishing activity within their jurisdiction, including within Australian waters," she said. Similarly, Queensland's Statewide Landcover and Trees Study uses satellite imagery to monitor woody vegetation clearing, including the detection of illegal clearing.

Professor Watson cited a similar example. "Global forest watch has been a game change for monitoring the state of the world forests in near real time. This can help identify illegal activities and informed active enforcement of forest conservation around the world," Professor Watson said.

The paper also noted positive environmental changes due to human intervention such as greening seen in large expanses in China, which was driven by large scale national policies, including forest conservation and payments for restoration.

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Three years of monitoring of Oregon's gray whales shows changes in health


OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY


IMAGE: RESEARCHERS USING DRONES CAPTURE IMAGES LIKE THIS TO HELP THEM CALCULATE WHALE HEALTH USING THE BODY AREA INDEX, WHICH IS SIMILAR TO THE BODY MASS INDEX, OR BMI, IN PEOPLE,... view more

CREDIT: GEMM LAB, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

NEWPORT, Ore. - Three years of "health check-ups" on Oregon's summer resident gray whales shows a compelling relationship between whales' overall body condition and changing ocean conditions that likely limited availability of prey for the mammals, a new study from Oregon State University indicates.

Researchers from the Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Laboratory at OSU's Marine Mammal Institute used drones to monitor 171 whales off the Oregon Coast during the foraging season between June and October in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

They found that the whales' health declined following a period of relatively poor upwelling - an ocean condition that brings colder, nutrient-rich water closer to the surface - compared to previous years.

"What we see is this compelling relationship between the oceanographic processes that control the quality and quantity of available prey and whale health," said Leigh Torres, an assistant professor with the Marine Mammal Institute and the lab's director. "This research gives us an inclination that changes in ocean conditions might be causing skinny whales."

The findings may also provide insight into the unusual gray whale die-off event that occurred in 2019 along the Pacific Coast, Torres said. More than 200 gray whales were reported dead between Mexico and Alaska last year, including six in Oregon. Many of the deceased whales appeared to be in poor body condition, meaning they looked skinny.

The study was just published in the journal Ecosphere. The paper's lead author is Leila Soledade Lemos, who recently completed her doctorate at Oregon State and worked with Torres in the GEMM Lab.

Most gray whales migrate from breeding grounds in Mexico to feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas between Alaska and Russia, where they spend the summer. The Pacific Coast Feeding Group, as Oregon's gray whales are known, spend the summer months feeding in coastal waters of Oregon, as well as northern California, Washington and southern Canada.

Torres and her team conduct "health check-ups" on the whales using drones to capture images and nets to capture fecal samples - two methods that provide researchers a lot of information in a noninvasive way, reducing stress on the whales.

Lemos used images captured by the drones to calculate the whales' Body Area Index. The BAI is similar to the Body Mass Index, or BMI, in humans, because both allow for comparisons among individuals despite differences in length and height.

The Body Area Index is a measurement that allows researchers to compare changes in individual whales as well as the population as a whole during the course of the feeding season and from year to year. The fecal samples help researchers determine a whale's hormones, sex and diet.

Gray whales typically arrive on the foraging grounds on the skinny side, then in ideal conditions will bulk up over the course of the summer in preparation for migration and breeding.

"With this research, we're trying to understand more about the health of the whales and how it varies throughout the foraging season and from year to year," Torres said. "Once we establish a baseline for whale body condition, we can start to see what is healthy and what is not and why."

The researchers often encounter the same whales multiple times in a season, or from one year to another, and have gotten to know their markings and features well enough to spot the whales by the names they've been assigned, such as Spray, Knife and Clouds.

"The first year the whales looked really fat and healthy. But after 2016, the whales were really skinny. You could see their skeletons," Lemos said. "For these whales, body condition is strongly related to food availability. It is also related to when they invest in reproduction."

The researchers noted nine pairs of mothers and calves in 2016, but only one pair each in the two following years. Calves had the highest Body Area Index numbers, followed by pregnant females. Lactating females had the lowest BAI and the most depleted body condition.

Overall, the whales' body condition deteriorated after poor upwelling conditions between 2016 and mid-2018. In 2016, the whales' mean BAI was 40.82, while in 2017 it was 38.67; 2018 was similar to 2017, at 38.62.

The poor upwelling may have caused a shift in the availability or quality of zooplankton, the whales' primary prey. But the impact of the changing food supply really became noticeable a year after the poor upwelling condition began.

"There was a one-year lag, or carry-over, between the lack of prey in 2016 and the whales' body condition the next year," Torres said.

One of the whales that died during the 2019 event had been observed and catalogued in previous years by Oregon State researchers.

The study highlights the value of monitoring whale health over time, Torres said. The researchers now have four years of data on Oregon's resident whales and hope to continue monitoring them to better understand health patterns in the population and how they connect to changing ocean conditions.

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The research was supported in part by the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Science and Technology Ocean Acoustics Program; Oregon Sea Grant; and the OSU Marine Mammal Institute. Lemos received funding from Brazil's Science Without Borders Program and its National Council for Scientific and Technological Developme Marine Mammal Institute. Lemos received funding from Brazil's Science Without Borders Program and its National Council for Scientific and Technological Developme

Honey bees could help monitor fertility loss in insects due to climate change

Research could help track how heat impacts sperm cells

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

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VIDEO: NEW RESEARCH FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY COULD HELP SCIENTISTS TRACK HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IS IMPACTING BEE REPRODUCTION. view more 

CREDIT: UBC MEDIA RELATIONS

New research from the University of British Columbia and North Carolina State University could help scientists track how climate change is impacting the birds and the bees... of honey bees.

Heat can kill sperm cells across the animal kingdom, yet there are few ways to monitor the impact of heat on pollinators like honey bees, who are vital to ecosystems and agriculture around the world.

In a study published in Nature Sustainability, researchers used a technique called mass spectrometry to analyse sperm stored in honey bee queens and found five proteins that are activated when the queens are exposed to extreme temperatures.

The proteins could be used as a tool to monitor heat stress in queen bees, and serve as a bellwether for wider insect fertility losses due to climate change.

"Just like cholesterol levels are used to indicate the risk of heart disease in humans, these proteins could indicate whether a queen bee has experienced heat stress," said lead author Alison McAfee, a biochemist at the Michael Smith Labs at UBC and postdoc at NC State. "If we start to see patterns of heat shock emerging among bees, that's when we really need to start worrying about other insects."

Although honey bees are quite resilient compared to other non-social insects, they are a useful proxy because they are managed by humans all over the world and are easy to sample.

The researchers were particularly interested in queen bees because their reproductive capacity is directly linked to the productivity of a colony. If the sperm stored by a queen is damaged, she can "fail" when she no longer has enough live sperm to produce enough drones and worker bees to maintain a colony.

"We wanted to find out what 'safe' temperatures are for queen bees and explore two potential routes to heat exposure: during routine shipping and inside colonies," said McAfee. "This information is really important for beekeepers, who often have no way to tell what condition the queens they receive are in. That can have a really dramatic impact on their quality and quality of their colonies."

First McAfee established what the threshold for queen "failure" was, and how much heat they could withstand by exposing them to a range of temperatures and durations.

"Our data suggests that temperatures between 15 to 38 degrees Celsius are safe for queens," said McAfee. "Above 38 degrees, the percentage of live sperm dropped to or below the level we see in failed queens compared to healthy queens, which is an 11.5 per cent decrease from the normal 90 per cent."

The researchers then placed temperature loggers in seven domestic queen shipments via ground and one by air. They found that one package experienced a temperature spike to 38 degrees Celsius, while one dropped to four degrees Celsius.

"These findings can help create better guidelines for safe queen bee transportation and help buyers and sellers track the quality of queens," said co-author Leonard Foster, a professor at the Michael Smith Labs at UBC.

While bee colonies are generally thought to be good at regulating the temperature inside hives, the researchers wanted to know how much the temperature actually fluctuated. They recorded the temperatures in three hives in August in El Centro, California, when the ambient temperature in the shade below each hive reached up to 45 degrees Celsius.

They found that in all three hives, the temperatures at the two outermost frames spiked upwards of 40 degrees Celsius for two to five hours, while in two of the hives, temperatures exceeded 38 degrees Celsius one or two frames closer to the core.

"This tells us that a colony's ability to thermoregulate begins to break down in extreme heat, and queens can be vulnerable to heat stress even inside the hive," said co-author Jeff Pettis, an independent research consultant and former USDA-ARS scientist.

Having established these key parameters, the researchers will continue to refine the use of the protein signature to monitor heat stress among queen bees.

"Proteins can change quite easily, so we want to figure out how long these signatures last and how that might affect our ability to detect these heat stress events," said McAfee. "I also want to figure out if we can identify similar markers for cold and pesticide exposure, so we can make more evidence-based management decisions. If we can use the same markers as part of a wider biomonitoring program, then that's twice as useful."

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