Monday, April 20, 2026

Elephant genomes reveal a past of continental connectivity and a future of increasing isolation

University of Copenhagen

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Elephants in Rwanda. In the largest genomic study of African elephants to date, an international team of researchers analysed 232 whole genomes from both savanna and forest elephants, collected across 17 African countries.
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Credit: Photo credit: Laura Bertola

In the largest genomic mapping of Africa's elephants, an international team of researchers shows that elephant history is defined by the ability to move across large distances and exchange genes throughout the African continent. But as the elephants’ living space is becoming increasingly patchy, the study documents the visible genetic consequences of isolation – and points to approaches that help to incorporate genomics into current and future elephant conservation.

In the largest genomic study of African elephants to date, an international team of researchers analysed 232 whole genomes from both savanna and forest elephants, collected across 17 African countries. This is the first large-scale, continent-wide genetic study since African elephants were recognized as two separate species. To achieve this herculean task, the researchers used samples that have been biobanked during previous genetic research more than 30 years ago and generated high-quality genomes through the iConserve program of the biotechnology company Illumina.

The results, which are now published in Nature Communications, show genetic signs of isolation in several populations, where elephant herds have been cut off from each other due to a history of hunting, as well as growing human populations and their needs for agriculture and infrastructural developments.

"Our study shows that until recently, elephants have been connected across vast distances. This freedom of movement has created genetic robustness because the populations have intermingled. Today, the picture is different. Elephants are living in a world where space is more and more restricted and some populations are becoming isolated," says the study’s lead author, Assistant Professor Patrícia Pečnerová of the University of Copenhagen and Lund University.

Remote areas are worst affected

Two remote areas in north-eastern Africa, in Eritrea and Ethiopia, are home to elephant populations that are small in number and quite isolated. The elephants there are more than 400 kilometres away from other populations and are enclosed by human settlements and agricultural areas. Here, researchers found a high degree of inbreeding, low genetic variation, and an accumulation of mildly deleterious mutations, which make them more vulnerable to changes in the environment and diseases.

A similar, but more nuanced pattern emerges in West Africa, where high human population densities and a long history of the ivory trade have also isolated and reduced elephant populations. Contrary to expectations, savanna elephants in west-central Africa do not show the same loss of genetic variation seen in the isolated populations in Eritrea and Ethiopia. While they are similarly inbred due to past bottlenecks and isolation, the impact on genetic variation is partly masked because forest elephant genes flowed into these populations through interspecies hybridization.

Savanna and forest elephants are known to hybridize in a small number of locations where their habitats meet. Surprisingly, this study also found that even savanna elephants far from the hybrid zone carry trace amounts of forest elephant ancestry. Whether this reflects a different position of the hybrid zone in the past or forest genes being carried across the continent by the movement of elephants, remains unclear. Yet, it highlights that while genetic exchange has been fundamental within species, it also has occurred between the two African elephant species.

However, when it comes to implications for conservation, Professor Alfred Roca of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a senior author of the study, calls for caution:

“By reconstructing their genomic history, we found that savanna and forest elephants followed very different population trajectories over the last four million years, with over 85% of overall elephant genetic variation due to the differences between them. Given this history, gene flow between the species is unlikely to be beneficial, and hybrid elephants should be avoided for translocations. Among savanna elephant populations, historically high connectivity across their range limited regional differentiation. However, there were sufficient genetic differences across southern, eastern and west-central Africa to suggest that translocations across regions should be avoided.”

We must protect both landscapes and animals

The patterns of gene flow revealed in this study are ultimately shaped by one thing: the ability of elephants to move across landscapes. Today, the positive effect of preserving elephant movement by protecting the landscape is quite evident in southern Africa in the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area – also called the KAZA region, which spans five Southern African countries and covers an area of 520,000 square kilometres in one of the world's largest nature reserves. Here, the elephants are genetically diverse because the populations are closely connected and can exchange genes.

Patrícia Pečnerová, who is also a National Geographic Explorer and a Branco Weiss Fellow, explains: "Elephants are extremely intelligent animals that can live close to humans and adapt. But one of the most important forces for their evolution is that genes can move between populations. In southern Africa, the landscape still allows movement between protected areas, and here we see that the genetic health of the elephants remains relatively intact."

Without ecological corridors and international coordination between countries and nature management authorities, even protected populations risk becoming weakened by genetic isolation. The highways of the animal kingdom are vanishing—once-open landscapes that allowed elephants to move, connect, and exchange genes are becoming increasingly fragmented. To ensure the long-term survival of elephants, we need to protect more than just the animals. We need to protect the landscapes and the connections between them.

“This study reminds us that we cannot understand or conserve elephants without knowing their history, and that they have always been in flux, especially in response to human impacts and climate change. The finding that recent and ancient hybridisation between the two species extends over such a large part of both species’ range is particularly interesting,” says co-author Chris Thouless, Director of Conservation at Save the Elephants and Director of the Elephant Crisis Fund. He adds: “The evidence of inbreeding in isolated and depleted savanna elephant populations is a matter of concern, especially since the samples on which this study is based date from before the recent period of intense poaching for ivory.”

The comprehensive genomic atlas not only provides new knowledge about the elephants' past and movements, but is also an operational tool for the authorities working to protect them. Along with making all data publicly available for future research and conservation efforts, the researchers behind the project and partners from Save the Elephants and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance are developing DNA tools that can be used on site to monitor wild elephant populations.

“Our findings provide important insights into the genetic health and connectivity of elephant populations on the African continent. By identifying distinct population units and levels of gene flow, this research can guide more effective conservation strategies, including habitat management, corridor protection, and translocation decisions. In addition, genomic tools and data that we have generated can support wildlife forensics by helping to trace the origin of confiscated ivory, thereby strengthening efforts to combat illegal wildlife trade. Looking ahead, this work contributes to a growing body of knowledge that will inform conservation not only in Uganda but across Africa. By integrating genomics into conservation education and planning, we can better safeguard elephant populations for future generations, ensuring their ecological role and long-term survival in rapidly changing environments” say co-authors Charles Masembe and Vincent Muwanika, both Professors at Makerere University in Uganda.

Main results of the study:

• 232 whole genomes from elephants in 17 African countries have been analysed – the largest genomic mapping of African elephants to date.

• African forest and savanna elephants have followed different evolutionary trajectories for millions of years.

• There is both older and more recent hybridisation between the species.

• Even savanna elephants outside of the hybrid zone carry small traces of forest elephant ancestry.

• Isolated peripheral populations (e.g., Eritrea and Ethiopia) show clear signs of inbreeding, lowered genetic variation, and an increased load of mildly deleterious mutations.

• West African populations have high inbreeding due to the long history of isolation, but savanna elephants in west-central Africa have surprisingly high levels of genetic variation due to hybridisation with forest elephants.

• While differentiation among savanna elephants across southern, eastern, and north-central Africa has been limited by historical gene flow, the differences that do exist suggest that translocations across regions should be avoided.

• Large contiguous natural areas in southern Africa show that the genetic health of the populations is maintained by the high genetic connectivity.

• Forest elephants have higher genetic variation with fewer potentially harmful mutations than savanna elephants, giving hope for their short-term survival despite their ongoing steep decline.

• The genomic resources will enable monitoring of elephant populations in the field

This research was supported by the iConserve program of Illumina, Inc., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service African Elephant Conservation Fund, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, and other personal awards.

Elephants in Rwanda. In the largest genomic study of African elephants to date, an international team of researchers analysed 232 whole genomes from both savanna and forest elephants, collected across 17 African countries.

Credit

Photo credit: Laura Bertola

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-71262-w.

Article Title

The genomic impact of population connectivity and decline in Africa’selephants

Article Publication Date

16-Apr-2026

For some Americans, their accent isn’t just related to where they live

Study finds ‘country identity’ affects how some people pronounce vowels

Ohio State University

COLUMBUS, Ohio – For people living in some parts of the United States, their accent might not just indicate where they live – but also who they think they are.

In a small study in rural northwestern Ohio, researchers found that men who had a “country” identity – for example, a love of hunting and guns, pickup trucks and country music – showed different vowel patterns in their pronunciations than did their neighbors who showed more interest in pursuits like theater, golf and rock music.

“We are used to language patterns like accents being regionally based – you talk like the people who live around you,” said Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, co-author of the study and associate professor of linguistics at The Ohio State University.

“But here we found that aspects of language may be tied to identity rather than just where you happen to live.”

The setting of the study – Defiance County – is key.

Defiance County is in a “transition zone” between the Inland North accent, which is spoken around the lower Great Lakes including Chicago, Detroit and Toledo, and the Midland accent, which includes parts of western and southern Ohio through the Midwest. The western part of Ohio has a gradual transition while the east, with European settlement shaped by the Western Reserve, has a much sharper border.

The result is that the area is a linguistic melting pot where speakers use a mix of features from both the North and the Midland, Campbell-Kibler said. So, in this study, the researchers investigated whether two factors other than the county’s location might influence accents of the residents: travel patterns and country identity.

The study, published recently in the journal American Speech, involved recorded interviews with 22 men in the county. The researchers looked specifically at five vowel patterns and how they differed based on travel patterns and country identity.

One hypothesis was that people who traveled a lot for work or other reasons might pick up accents tied to where they visit. The researchers compared those who traveled to Toledo or Michigan – firmly in the Inland North – with those who traveled to Fort Wayne, an Indiana city also in the transition zone, and those who didn’t travel much.

But travel affected only one of the vowels studied, the LOT vowel, with those traveling to Toledo more likely to use the Inland North pronunciation (where “hot” may sound more like “hat”). And this finding was not very robust, Campbell-Kibler said.

Much more robust were the findings about the country identity. Through the course of the interviews, the researchers asked participants about their hobbies, music choices and vehicle choices. Each participant was given a score for whether they mentioned connections to things like hunting, fishing, gardening, 4H and livestock (country identity) or hiking, biking, golf or video games (not country.) They were also asked about their high-school identity. Those who said “rednecks” or “ag kids” were given points for a country identity while those who said “band geeks” or “nerds” were not.

The researchers also asked each participant if they felt they had more in common with someone living in Fort Wayne, the nearest city, or with someone living in a similarly rural community in Idaho. Those who scored high on country identity were much more likely to say they had more in common with a person in rural Idaho.

Findings showed that those who identified more strongly with country practices were more likely to use two vowel patterns often associated with the South or Appalachia, even though Defiance County is hundreds of miles from those regions. For example, they may pronounce “my” like “ma.”

Although there was some Appalachian migration to Defiance County in the 20th century, participants didn’t maintain connections to family in Appalachia or connect their country identity to roots there. Instead, they defined being country as being about what someone does — especially having gardens and livestock.

Campbell-Kibler said she suspects that the results found in this study probably would be found in other parts of the United States.

“People today are influenced not just by the people they live near, but by all they read and see on the internet and television,” she said. “The way people talk can be affected by who they want to be, not just where they live.”

Co-authors on the study were Martha Austen and Shontael Elward, who did the work as graduate students at Ohio State, and both now have PhDs in linguistics from the university.

Journal

American Speech

DOI

10.1215/00031283-12463431

Article Title

Travel Patterns and Country Identity in Northwest Ohio Vowels

The 2040 milestones that Europe must meet to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050

Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Energy, transport, heating and industrial transition: a major modelling study now provides EU-wide guidance with high sector detail on the required pace of transition to fossil-free technologies. The conclusion is encouraging: the EU Green Deal is realistic, and it will ultimately make the continent stronger and more independent from oil and gas crises. The study was conducted at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in Nature Communications.

To understand the scope for useful policy measures, the research team focuses on how the EU can achieve its 2050 climate neutrality target at minimal cost. It draws on the accurate energy–economy–climate model REMIND, runs through a reference scenario – based on assumptions deemed to be most plausible – and then varies key assumptions: Where does the EU stand in terms of emissions reduction and energy efficiency in 2030? How will the costs of wind and solar power develop by 2050? How available will hydrogen and synthetic fuels be as fossil-free sources of energy? Additionally, how much capacity can the EU create for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere to offset hard-to-avoid residual emissions?

One finding is that the EU climate transition, at minimal cost and under the most plausible scenario assumptions, would require a reduction of 2040 net greenhouse gas emissions by 86 percent, relative to 1990. “This result is grounded in techno-economic optimisation of the EU’s transformation path, without looking at questions of fair global burden-sharing,” says PIK researcher and study co-author Robert Pietzcker.

The EU climate advisory board had recommended a 90 to 95 percent reduction based on considerations of both what is possible and what is fair globally. In doing so, the board had been drawing, among other things, on preliminary results from scenarios developed for the current study. The recommendation was taken up by the EU Commission’s proposal for a 90 percent reduction target. In order to slightly reduce the pressure on member states, it was allowed that 5 percent reductions can come from projects outside the EU. “Our results now show that the resulting 85 percent EU-internal reductions are in line with a cost-effective transition to climate neutrality,” explains Pietzcker.

Electricity generation from wind and solar must increase seven-fold

To achieve such a significant emissions reduction within just 14 years, the EU must double down on its achievements until now – having reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent in 2024, relative to 1990 – and further accelerate the transition. To guide future measures, the research team provides “milestones” for individual sectors by 2040 based on its model analysis. These are shown as a point value (representing the reference scenario under the most plausible assumptions) and as a “sensitivity range” (across the entire set of scenarios with the varied assumptions still deemed to be reasonable).

Two pillars of the transition are the expansion of renewable electricity, and the electrification of energy demands. In the reference pathway to climate neutrality, electricity generation from wind and solar will need to be seven times higher in 2040 than in the period from 2018 to 2022 (sensitivity range: four to eight times higher). The share of electricity in final energy consumption, which was fairly constant at 20 percent in the 2010s, will need to rise to 49 percent by 2040 (range: 45 to 59 percent).

Although a sevenfold rise in wind and solar electricity by 2040 is ambitious, recent experience indicates that it may well be achievable: the required annual growth rate was already achieved over the period 2021–2025, driven by the policy response to the energy crisis. Similarly for electrification: the EU-wide share of battery-electric vehicles in car sales has increased from 2 percent in 2019 to 19 percent in 2025, with Norway and Denmark reaching sales shares above 80 percent.

Dependence on gas and oil imports falls by 60 percent

The study also provides milestones regarding the capture of CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it permanently in geological formations – a capability that will be indispensable for climate neutrality, but which has so far been virtually non-existent. Carbon capture and storage capacity must rise by 26 (range: 16 to 30) percent annually between 2030 and 2040, reaching 188 (56 to 257) million tonnes of CO₂ annually

“The path to EU climate neutrality by 2050 is still feasible, as long as the EU now shapes the period up to 2040 with ambitious policies,” says Renato Rodrigues, PIK researcher and lead author of the study. “Successful decarbonisation can make the EU economically stronger and strategically more independent.”

This is because, in the reference scenario of the model analysis, demand for both natural gas and crude oil in 2040 is 60 percent lower than in the period from 2018 to 2022, Rodrigues explains. “Although the EU might still need alternative energy imports – e.g. green hydrogen, ammonia, or e-fuels – the volumes would be much lower than current fossil fuels, reducing the EU’s reliance on off-shore energy producers.”

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-71159-8

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

2040 greenhouse gas reduction targets and energy transitions in line with the EU Green Deal

Article Publication Date

16-Apr-2026

‘Dancing jets’ from black hole reveal their immense power

New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans the Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes.

Curtin University

image:
The strong stellar wind from the supergiant star pushes the jets launched by the black hole away from the star. This causes the jet direction to vary as the black hole and the supergiant star move around their orbit.
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Credit: International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR)

New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans the Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes, confirming scientists’ theories of how black holes help shape the structure of the Universe.

In a paper published in Nature Astronomy, researchers found the power of the jets in Cygnus X-1 – a system comprised of the first confirmed black hole and a supergiant star – was equivalent to the power output of 10,000 Suns.

To record the measurement, researchers used an array of linked up telescopes separated by large distances to observe the black hole jets being buffeted by the winds of the star as the black hole moved around its orbit – much like how strong winds on Earth can push around water in a fountain.

By knowing the power of the wind and measuring how much the jets were bent, the researchers could determine the instantaneous power of the jets for the first time.

In addition, they were able to determine the speed of the black hole’s jets – about half the speed of light, or 150,000 km per second – another measurement that has challenged scientists for decades.

The research was led from the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA) and the Curtin node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Lead author Dr Steve Prabu, who worked at CIRA at the time of the research and who is now based at the University of Oxford, said researchers were able to make the measurement using a sequence of images of the “dancing jets” – a term he used to describe the jets’ movement pattern as they were repeatedly deflected in different directions by the supergiant star’s powerful winds as the star and black hole moved around their orbits.

Dr Prabu said the measurement allowed scientists to understand what fraction of the energy released around black holes could be deposited into the surrounding environment, thereby changing the environment.

“A key finding from this research is that about 10 per cent of the energy released as matter falls in towards the black hole is carried away by the jets,” Dr Prabu said.

“This is what scientists usually assume in large-scale simulated models of the Universe, but it has been hard to confirm by observation until now.”

Co-author Professor James Miller-Jones, from CIRA and the Curtin node of ICRAR, said previous methods could only measure the average jet power over thousands or even millions of years, preventing accurate comparisons with the X-ray energy released instantaneously from the infalling matter.

"And because our theories suggest that the physics around black holes is very similar, we can now use this measurement to anchor our understanding of jets, whether they are from black holes 10 or 10 million times the mass of the Sun," Professor Miller-Jones said.

"With radio telescope projects such as the Square Kilometre Array Observatory currently under construction in Western Australia and South Africa, we expect to detect jets from black holes in millions of distant galaxies, and the anchor point provided by this new measurement will help calibrate their overall power output.

“Black hole jets provide an important source of feedback to the surrounding environment and are critical to understanding the evolution of galaxies.”

Other collaborating institutions included the University of Barcelona, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Lethbridge and the Institute of Space Science.

The paper, ‘A jet bent by a stellar wind in the black hole X-ray binary Cygnus X-1’, published in journal Nature Astronomy, can be found here.

Artist’s impression of the Cygnus X-1 binary system [VIDEO]

The direction of the radio jet changes as the black hole and the star move around their orbit (shown in red).