Over the past 50,000 years, many of the world’s large mammals have gone extinct. Until recent decades, all we knew about them came from fossils. Now, analysis of ancient DNA is adding to the picture.
Ancient DNA is damaged and degraded genetic material often obtained from fossils thousands of years old. It’s giving scientists insights into hidden species diversity and the way populations expanded and contracted, based on changes in genetic diversity across time.
These ancient DNA studies have in large part been carried out in cold regions at northern latitudes, where low temperatures and permafrost mean DNA is better preserved – think woolly mammoths.
Across Africa, climates are warmer and DNA preservation in fossil remains is generally much poorer. As a result, there have been few ancient DNA studies of African large mammals, and the few that have been done were focused mainly on humans and domestic species within the past 2,000 years or so.
Ancient DNA allows us to study extinct species and their genetic relationships to living species, and to measure the genetic diversity of past populations. It can tell us something about how species respond to changes in their environment and reveal details about the mechanisms of evolution, population loss or species extinction.
