Barlow, L. D. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2025

Paleogenomic insight into the collapse, recovery, and management of American bison

American bison were pushed to the brink of extinction by the 20th century. This bottleneck and the fragmented nature of remnant populations pose challenges to their resilience, as does human-facilitated admixture between bison subspecies and with cattle. To contextualize current diversity, we sequenced 115 ancient and 45 modern bison genomes from across North America dating back within the last [~]20,000 years. Past bison populations were highly connected, in contrast to structured modern herds. Modern wood bison carry plains bison ancestry from 1920s translocations, while many bison lack cattle ancestry that has previously been believed to be ubiquitous. Our findings reveal the legacy of human impacts on bison in the context of modern conservation and highlight the applicability of ancient DNA for guiding wildlife restoration.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

The genomic basis of animal origins: a chromosomal perspective from the sponge Ephydatia muelleri

The genomes of non-bilaterian metazoans are key to understanding the molecular basis of early animal evolution. However, a full comprehension of how animal-specific traits such as nervous systems arose is hindered by the scarcity and fragmented nature of genomes from key taxa, such as Porifera. Ephydatia muelleri is a freshwater sponge found across the northern hemisphere. Here we present its 326 Mb genome, assembled to high contiguity (N50: 9.88 Mb) with 23 chromosomes on 24 scaffolds. Our analyses reveal a metazoan-typical genome architecture, with highly shared synteny across Metazoa, and suggest that adaptation to the extreme temperatures and conditions found in freshwater often involves gene duplication. The pancontinental distribution and ready laboratory culture of E. muelleri make this a highly practical model system, which with RNAseq, DNA methylation and bacterial amplicon data spanning its development and range allows exploration of genomic changes both within sponges and in early animal evolution.

evolutionary biology↗