Dataset Information

Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific.

ABSTRACT: The human colonization of Remote Oceania remains one of the great feats of exploration in history, proceeding east from Asia across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Human commensal and domesticated species were widely transported as part of this diaspora, possibly as far as South America. We sequenced mitochondrial control region DNA from 122 modern and 22 ancient chicken specimens from Polynesia and Island Southeast Asia and used these together with Bayesian modeling methods to examine the human dispersal of chickens across this area. We show that specific techniques are essential to remove contaminating modern DNA from experiments, which appear to have impacted previous studies of Pacific chickens. In contrast to previous reports, we find that all ancient specimens and a high proportion of the modern chickens possess a group of unique, closely related haplotypes found only in the Pacific. This group of haplotypes appears to represent the authentic founding mitochondrial DNA chicken lineages transported across the Pacific, and allows the early dispersal of chickens across Micronesia and Polynesia to be modeled. Importantly, chickens carrying this genetic signature persist on several Pacific islands at high frequencies, suggesting that the original Polynesian chicken lineages may still survive. No early South American chicken samples have been detected with the diagnostic Polynesian mtDNA haplotypes, arguing against reports that chickens provide evidence of Polynesian contact with pre-European South America. Two modern specimens from the Philippines carry haplotypes similar to the ancient Pacific samples, providing clues about a potential homeland for the Polynesian chicken.

SUBMITTER: Thomson VA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3977275 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific.

Thomson Vicki A VA Lebrasseur Ophélie O Austin Jeremy J JJ Hunt Terry L TL Burney David A DA Denham Tim T Rawlence Nicolas J NJ Wood Jamie R JR Gongora Jaime J Girdland Flink Linus L Linderholm Anna A Dobney Keith K Larson Greger G Cooper Alan A

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20140317 13

The human colonization of Remote Oceania remains one of the great feats of exploration in history, proceeding east from Asia across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Human commensal and domesticated species were widely transported as part of this diaspora, possibly as far as South America. We sequenced mitochondrial control region DNA from 122 modern and 22 ancient chicken specimens from Polynesia and Island Southeast Asia and used these together with Bayesian modeling methods to examine th ...[more]

PMID: 24639505

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Project description:BackgroundMitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) hypervariable region (HVR) sequences of prehistoric Polynesian chicken samples reflect dispersal of two haplogroups--D and E--by the settlers of the Pacific. The distribution of these chicken haplogroups has been used as an indicator of human movement. Recent analyses suggested similarities between prehistoric Pacific and South American chicken samples, perhaps reflecting prehistoric Polynesian introduction of the chicken into South America. These analyses have been heavily debated. The current distribution of the D and E lineages among contemporary chicken populations in the Western Pacific is unclear, but might ultimately help to inform debates about the movements of humans that carried them.ObjectivesWe sought to characterize contemporary mtDNA diversity among chickens in two of the earliest settled archipelagos of Remote Oceania, the Marianas and Vanuatu.MethodsWe generated HVR sequences for 43 chickens from four islands in Vanuatu, and for 5 chickens from Guam in the Marianas.ResultsForty samples from Vanuatu and three from Guam were assigned to haplogroup D, supporting this as a Pacific chicken haplogroup that persists in the Western Pacific. Two haplogroup E lineages were observed in Guam and two in Vanuatu. Of the E lineages in Vanuatu, one was identical to prehistoric Vanuatu and Polynesian samples and the other differed by one polymorphism. Contrary to our expectations, we observed few globally distributed domesticate lineages not associated with Pacific chicken dispersal. This might suggest less European introgression of chickens into Vanuatu than expected. If so, the E lineages might represent lineages maintained from ancient Pacific chicken introductions. The Vanuatu sample might thus provide an opportunity to distinguish between maintained ancestral Pacific chicken lineages and replacement by global domesticates through genomic analyses, which could resolve questions of contemporary haplogroup E chicken relationships and inform interpretations of debated sequences from archaeological samples.

Dataset Information

Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific.

Publications

Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific.

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