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New clues to evolution dug up from world’s largest human fossil collection
The skulls of a modern human (Cro-Magnon 1, far left) and a Neandertal (La Ferrassie 1, center left) Credit: SciencE Mag/FOSSIL SKULLS AND CHIMPANZEE/J.-J. HUBLIN; BONOBO/ROYAL MUSEUM FOR CENTRAL AFRICA, TERVUREN, BELGIUM
The Sima de los Huesos (pit of bones) is a cave in northern Spain from which 6500 human fossils from at least 28 individuals have been recovered to date. Analysis of skulls from the earliest humans with Neandertal-like features reassigned the age of the fossils to about 430 000 years ago.
Dr Lee Arnold, from the Environment Institute at Adelaide University, was one of the lead authors on the research paper published in the journal Science. The research addresses controversy associated with human evolution during the Middle Pleistocene period, in particular the origin of Neandertals and modern humans.
Previous studies of fossils in the cave in the Atapuerca Mountains reported the age of the skulls at more than 530 000 years old. Dr Lee Arnold is a geochronologist and led the dating part of the study. He conceded that “This age range is one of the most difficult to date”. However, Arnold says that to arrive at the new date range: “rather than relying on a single dating technique, we used six different techniques to produce a robust chronological study which would not have been possible a few years ago”.
At the Sima de los Huesos. Credit: Science Mag/JAVIER TRUEBA/MADRID SCIENTIFIC FILMS
The result is more compatible with morphological and genetic evidence for human evolution of the time. “We’ve resolved the age of the fossils at 100,000 years younger than previously reported, which makes them the oldest reliably-dated humans to show clear Neandertal morphology.” Dr Arnold and Dr Martina Demuro, geochronologists from Adelaide University’s Environmental Luminescence group, conducted dating of the site while at Spain’s National Research Centre for Human Evolution (CENIEH).
Along with a more accurate age of the fossils, studies of the specimens cranial, facial, and dental features of the Atapuerca hominins allows more precise evolutionary positioning of these Neandertal ancestors. The analysis has allowed for testing of the “accretion” model which proposes that Neandertal features appeared separately rather than at the same time. For example the facial features evolve at a different time to the neocranium.
The skulls from this population show jaws and teeth which are more typically Neandertal and upper cranial features more like Homo heidelbergensis, suggesting the fossils may belong to a new species or sub-species. “A picture is emerging of human evolution which is way more complex than has been considered over the past couple of decades,” says Dr Arnold.
More skulls of extinct human species have been found at the Sima archaeological site than anywhere else in the world. “This collection of bones, which is expected to continue growing in the coming years, is becoming increasingly important for the study of human evolution.” says Professor Juan Luis Arsuaga, from Madrid’s Complutense University and the ISCIII Joint Centre for Evolution and Human Behaviour in Spain.
Obtaining the fossils is difficult, with access limited to a 500 metre crawl through underground caves and a 13 metre abseil down a deep vertical shaft. A career as a research scientist really can take you to some amazing places!
Hear Dr Lee Arnold speak on ABC Radio National or read the transcript.
Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula – Dr Nerilie Abram Presentation now online
The presentation by Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU), entitled: “Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula” presented by the Sprigg Geobiology Centre is now online.
Abstract
The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than any other region of the southern hemisphere over the past 50 years. But the short observational records of Antarctic climate don’t allow for an understanding of how unusual this recent climate warming may be. In this seminar I will present reconstructions of temperature and melt history from a highly resolved ice core record from James Ross Island on the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula. The isotope-derived temperature reconstruction gives a statistical framework to assess the rapid recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in conjunction with a spatial network of proxy records provides insights into the underlying climatic drivers. Visible melt layers in the James Ross Island ice core also yield a unique insight into the response of ice melt to changing temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 1000 years, with implications for future ice shelf and ice sheet stability in the region.
Biography
After her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, Nerilie studied for her PhD at the Australian National University where she used corals from Sumatra to learn about climate variability in the tropical Indian Ocean. She then worked for seven years as an ice core researcher at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, which included fieldwork on James Ross Island on the Antarctic Peninsula and for the NEEM deep ice core in Greenland. In 2011 Nerilie returned to ANU as a QEII research fellow awarded by the Australian Research Council. Nerilie’s research focus now spans from the tropics to Antarctica with the goal of improving understanding of the climate processes that affect Australia’s rainfall patterns. Nerilie has recently returned from a two month field season in east Antarctica where she was involved in a multinational project lead by the Australian Antarctic Division to retrieve a new 2000-year ice core climate record from Aurora Basin.
Nerilie Abram working on the ice core. Image: Paul Roger
Impacts of Explosive Road Expansion on Global Ecosystems and Biodiversity: William F. Laurance
William F. Laurance will deliver a free public presentation at the University of Adelaide on the 26th of June entitled: “Impacts of Explosive Road Expansion on Global Ecosystems and Biodiversity”.
William is Distinguished Research Professor at James Cook University, Cairns, and has received one of Australia’s highest scientific honours, the Australian Laureate Award. He also holds the Prince Bernhard Chair for International Nature Conservation at Ultrecht University, Netherlands.
Professor Laurance has authored eight books and over 400 scientific and popular articles. He is in the top 0.001% of cited scientists globally, in the fields of ecology and environmental science.
His scientific interests include assessing the impacts of deforestation, logging, hunting, bushfires, road expansion and climatic change on tropical ecosystems and biodiversity.
Abstract
We live in an era of unprecedented road expansion, with new roads now penetrating into most the world’s surviving wildernesses. Such roads often unleash a Pandora’s Box of environmental problems, such as illegal colonisation, deforestation, hunting, and land speculation. By the year 2050, it is expected that Earth will have 25 million kilometres of additional roads and highways—enough to circle the planet over 600 times. Ninety percent of these new roads will be in developing nations that sustain the bulk of Earth’s biodiversity. I will highlight the impacts of rapid road expansion on native ecosystems and wildlife, and then describe an ambitious effort I am leading to devise a ‘Global Roadmap’–an innovative zoning scheme to define where on Earth future roads should and should not go.
When: 3pm, 26th June
Where: Horace Lamb Lecture Theatre, Adelaide University
Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from a world leading environmental scientist.
Read Professor Laurance’s most recent article for The Conversation: “Boycotts are a crucial weapon to fight environment-harming firms”
Longest-lived animal survivor known to science now under threat
The Nautilus has long been prized for its unique shell, to be found in Renaissance Cabinets of curiosities and now sold on eBay for as much as AU$200.
Peter Ward diving at Osprey Reef, off the Great Barrier Reef. Source: Nautilus Magazine
It isn’t hard to see why. Aside from the inherent beauty of the Nautilus, the shell has some enigmatic features that only add to the aesthetics. When cut away, one of the finest natural examples of a logarithmic spiral can be seen. The Nautilus uses these chambers to adjust its buoyancy, by pumping water in and out of the chambers with different salt content and therefore density via osmosis.
Cut away of the Nautilus shell showing the logarithmic spiral. Image: Wikipedia
Professor Peter Ward, on the Environment Institute at Adelaide University, is an internationally renowned palaeontologist and world authority of the Nautilus. He has called for a global ban on the trade of the Nautilus seashell.
“Nautilus has survived every single mass extinction event that’s been thrown at it over half a billion years, now it’s being wiped out by humans to sit on a bathroom shelf or as a pretty button on someone’s shirt,” he says.
Ward has just returned from an expedition in the Philippines where he discovered the Nautilus was close to extinction at known Nautilus fishing sites.
“The Nautilus situation we found in the Philippines was mind-boggling,” says Professor Ward. “The Philippines have been at the centre of Nautilus fishing for decades. Now it is just about extinct there. And it is not just Nautilus. In the same environments we found almost no larger fish at all where there should be large schools of many different species.”
Professor Ward says there is good reason to be concerned about the Nautilus in Western Australian deep reefs, as the largest Nautilus in the world comes from there. “We are seeing them being sold on eBay even though there is supposed to be regulation in Australia”.
“Nautilus is the ‘canary in the coalmine’ of the deep reef environment,” he says. “It tells us about the health of our deeper reefs where little ecological study is done. When Nautilus isn’t there, we know that the other fish at those depths are also at risk from overfishing or other environmental factors. We cannot rule out high acidity and warming of these formerly cool, deep waters caused by climate change, and from rising levels of silt caused by nearby deforestation.”
In the past few years Peter Ward has contributed to the breakthrough discovery that ancient Nautilus pompilius is in fact many separate species, which has overturned the widespread reference to it as a “living fossil.” Ward laments that the human toll on the nautilus may be the last discovery that he ever makes about this remarkable animal.
In his surprisingly emotive piece about a creature for a magazine of the same name, the Nautilus, Ward tells the story of his scientific career researching a creature that has prevailed for 500 million years. It began with his entrancement with the Nautilus shell after first seeing one in a shell shop in Hawaii as a young boy. It ended, albeit only temporarily, with the tragic death of a friend on a diving expedition in New Caledonia.
“Looking back at the myriad decisions, tests, detours, and the rest of the messy contradiction and actions that we call life, I have to marvel at the waves of chance that swept the nautilus and me into its rough seas.” Ward muses.
Ingenious: Peter Ward from Nautilus on Vimeo.
Read more about Peter Ward on the Environment Institute blog here.
Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula – Dr Nerilie Abram
The Sprigg Geobiology Centre welcomes you to attend a seminar by Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU), entitled: “Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula“
Nerilie Abram working on the ice core. Image: Paul Roger
Abstract:
The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than any other region of the southern hemisphere over the past 50 years. But the short observational records of Antarctic climate don’t allow for an understanding of how unusual this recent climate warming may be? In this seminar I will present reconstructions of temperature and melt history from a highly resolved ice core record from James Ross Island on the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula. The isotope-derived temperature reconstruction gives a statistical framework to assess the rapid recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in conjunction with a spatial network of proxy records provides insights into the underlying climatic drivers. Visible melt layers in the James Ross Island ice core also yield a unique insight into the response of ice melt to changing temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 1000 years, with implications for future ice shelf and ice sheet stability in the region.
Biography:
After her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, Nerilie studied for her PhD at the Australian National University where she used corals from Sumatra to learn about climate variability in the tropical Indian Ocean. She then worked for seven years as an ice core researcher at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, which included fieldwork on James Ross Island on the Antarctic Peninsula and for the NEEM deep ice core in Greenland. In 2011 Nerilie returned to ANU as a QEII research fellow awarded by the Australian Research Council. Nerilie’s research focus now spans from the tropics to Antarctica with the goal of improving understanding of the climate processes that affect Australia’s rainfall patterns. Nerilie has recently returned from a two month field season in east Antarctica where she was involved in a multinational project lead by the Australian Antarctic Division to retrieve a new 2000-year ice core climate record from Aurora Basin.
When: Friday, May 30, 12:10pm
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, University of Adelaide
If you would like to meet with Nerilie during her visit, please contact her hosts: Jonathan Tyler jonathan.tyler[at]adelaide.edu.au or John Tibby john.tibby[at]adelaide.edu.au.
New Zealand claims back the Kiwi after ancient DNA testing
Almost 20 years ago, Alan Cooper from the Australian Centre of Ancient DNA found that the Kiwi might actually originate from Australia.
Given that the emu and cassowary are the Kiwis closest living relatives and that New Zealand split off from Australia when Gondwana broke up, this was a logical suggestion.
Alan Cooper is from New Zealand himself and says: “This was a huge psychological blow in New Zealand and extremely unpopular”.
Photo: Kyle Davis and Paul Scofield
A new paper published today in Science sets the record straight. Alan Cooper and his team have been able to analyse the ancient DNA of two extinct birds from Madagascar and have found the Kiwis to be their closest relatives.
The emu, cassowary, ostrich, rhea and kiwi are known as “ratite birds” they can’t fly because they have lost the bone that wing muscles can attach to. The fact that the DNA of the kiwi closely matches the DNA of the extinct elephant bird from Madagascar means that birds of kiwi lineage must have flown at some point to get from Madagascar.
The connection between these birds undermines the idea that ratites evolved from ancestors that didn’t fly.
“Twenty years later it’s great to be able to show using ancient DNA that the kiwi is not an Australian bird. In fact its closest relative is the elephant bird from Madagascar,” he says.
“The New Zealanders will be much more comfortable with that. It’s their worst nightmare to be a derivative of Australia.”
Find out more about this story and flightless birds in Kieren Mitchell and Alan Cooper’s Conversation article and also in New Scientist, Science News and ABC Science Online articles.
Professor Andrew Lowe leads new 2.5m DNA Barcoding Project
Did you know that over 400 new species were discovered in the Amazon between 2010-2013 alone? This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Professor Andrew Lowe of the Environment Institute says: “Of the estimated 10 million species that exist on our planet, only just over a million have so far been identified and described”.
Flickr: http://www.enzymlogic.com
Lowe will lead a 2.5 million dollar project that uses “DNA barcoding” to rapidly and accurately identify key animal and plant species. He predicts that it would take at least another 2000 years to identify Earth’s remaining species using traditional taxonomy.
“With DNA barcoding, we can vastly accelerate this rate and generate significant scientific and economic benefits.”
The national collaborative project is a partnership with scientists from Kings Park Botanic Garden, CSIRO, James Cook University and the South Australian Museum. Research infrastructure organisation Bioplatforms Australia is project managing the project and will provide access to DNA sequencing infrastructure and genomics and bioinformatics expertise. The project has support also from Fortescue Metals Group and BHP through its Bush Blitz program.
The project will provide value in 5 key areas:
- verifying timber origins to combat illegal timber trading;
- authenticating labelling and geographical origin of fish in the retail marketplace;
- mapping plant biodiversity in the Pilbara to help with mine site environmental impact assessment and restoration management;
- biodiversity discovery and impact assessment of invertebrates that inhabit underground aquifers utilised by mining and farming; and
- generating barcodes for Australia’s orchids to enhance conservation.
“DNA barcoding has significant potential to enhance our understanding of Australian biodiversity and become an essential tool in the environmental assessment process and conservation planning,” says Professor Lowe. “By utilising a genetic rather than morphological marker system, barcoding can help combat illegal trade in endangered and valuable species through more accurate identification and tracking.”
Find out more about the exciting research coming out of The Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity and about this project published on the LeadSA.
Just for fun: check out TIME magazine’s TOP 10 new species of 2013. It will be interesting to see what 2014 has in store!
International Day of Biological Diversity 2014
The United Nations have proclaimed May 22 as International Day of Biological Diversity, (IDBD) to help increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.
IDB2014 Poster
The theme this year is “islands”. Island comprise unique, irreplaceable ecosystems, often with many species found nowhere else on earth. One-tenth of the world’s population live on an island, comprising some 600 million islanders. The conservation of the unique ecosystems are paramount to the livelihood, economy, well-being and cultural identity of these people.
The Environment Institute is involved with important work to monitor and help reduce the rapid rate of biodiversity decline around the world.
Presented here is research by Associate Professor Phill Cassey and the Invasion Ecology group which focuses on Australia’s third largest island, Kangaroo Island.
The presentation is entitled: ” The distribution and management of feral Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) on Kangaroo Island, South Australia”.
Abstract: The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is a widely-distributed pest bird species. Native to the Indian sub-continent, peafowl have established numerous feral populations in Australasia, USA and Hawaii, Europe, and South Africa. At high densities feral peafowl are habitat modifiers and a social nuisance, although their ecological impacts have been poorly documented. 20 On Kangaroo Island (South Australia) feral peafowl have established from uncontained domestic populations and are now widely dispersed in separate groups across the island. Previous peafowl management on Kangaroo Island has not been implemented in an evidence-based coordinated manner. In 2013 we conducted an Adelaide University Honours research project (C. Cunningham) to quantify the distribution and size of peafowl groups across Kangaroo Island, and to determine the suitability of habitat for future spread and expansion of the feral populations. We found that there is abundant unoccupied suitable habitat on Kangaroo Island and that, without management, the islandwide population is expected to substantially increase. Population modeling demonstrated that an annual cull of 150 birds would sufficiently reduce the island population, in six years, to realistic levels for achieving population eradication.
Giant Cuttlefish returns to the Spencer Gulf for Coitis
South Australian scientists are ecstatic to find that the Great Australian Cuttlefish has returned to the Spencer Gulf for breeding this year. Their numbers have been down over the last few years and scientists don’t know why, or where they went.
The Great Australian Cuttlefish can weigh up to 13kg. Image: Howard Womersley.
The cuttlefish, with it’s blue blood pumped through three hearts, and the ability to change colour at the drop of a shell, makes the cuttlefish an enigmatic creature to say the least.
The increase in the breeding aggregation numbers this year is also a source of interest to scientists.
“We’ve looked at a whole range of biotic and abotic factors that could have contributed to it, but nothing jumps out.” says Professor Bronwyn Gillanders.
Gillanders says she is quite excited to that there were a lot sighted early in the season, but that the proof will be when surveys are completed to estimate the abundances on this years breeding aggregation.
Listen to Bronwyn Gillanders speak about the cuttlefish on ABC Rural.
The Environment Institute 