Species identification of Late Pleistocene bat bones using collagen fingerprinting
Species identification of Late Pleistocene bat bones using collagen fingerprinting
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DOI：
10.1002/oa.2818
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发表时间：
2019-11-11
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Herman, Jeremy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Buckley, Michael;Herman, Jeremy
蝙蝠是仅次于啮齿动物的第二大哺乳动物目（翼手目），在生理和生态方面差异很大。这些生活在温带气候的物种通常是食虫的，夜间或黄昏，白天在树洞，洞穴或建筑物中避难。它们是潜在的有价值的生态指标，因为它们依赖于合适的栖息地和节肢动物的食物，这两者通常受到人类活动的影响。因此，从洞穴中发现的古老组合中识别蝙蝠可以为古环境重建提供有用的数据，并显示栖息地丧失的影响。在这里，我们应用最近开发的方法，胶原蛋白指纹的软电离质谱鉴定古老的蝙蝠仍然在考古组合针孔洞（德比郡，英格兰）。我们的研究结果表明，一组简单的标记可以区分所有七个属的蝙蝠已知存在于现代或古代英国（鼠耳蝠，Nyctalus，伏翼，Barbastella，Plecotus，Eptesicus和Rhinolophus）。进一步的分析表明，物种水平的测定是可能的，在这些类群中的一些，但它会更容易实现使用更先进的方法，胶原蛋白序列分析的液相色谱串联质谱法。在我们收集的6,800个古代骨胶原指纹中，我们只发现了1%来自翼手目动物的相似指纹，而这些指纹主要来自鼠耳蝠（两个明显的勃兰特蝙蝠指纹，但大多数是无法区分的胡须，Daughon和Natterer的蝙蝠），Barbastella（西方的barbastelle是欧洲唯一已知的该属成员），和菊头蝠（被确定为较小的马蹄蝠R。而不是罕见的大马蹄蝠R。铁甲喹）。我们推断，该地点可能全年都被栖息的蝙蝠使用，这些遗骸的积累可能不是捕食者活动的结果。更重要的是，这里提供的肽生物标志物可以证明在更系统地分析许多欧洲考古和古生物遗址的微型动物遗迹中有价值，最好是那些收集了精心策划的地层信息和年代框架的遗址。
Bats form the second most diverse mammalian order (Chiroptera), after rodents, and vary widely in their physiology and ecology. Those species that live in temperate climates are generally insectivorous and nocturnal or crepuscular, sheltering in tree hollows, caves, or buildings during the day. They are potentially valuable ecological indicators, due to their dependence on suitable roosting sites and arthropod food, both of which are commonly affected by human activities. Identification of bats from ancient assemblages that are found in caves could therefore provide useful data for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions and show the effect of habitat loss. Here, we apply the recently developed approach of collagen fingerprinting by soft ionisation mass spectrometry to the identification of ancient bat remains in an archaeological assemblage from Pin Hole Cave (Derbyshire, England). Our results show that a simple set of markers can distinguish all seven genera of bats known to be present in either modern or ancient Britain (Myotis, Nyctalus, Pipistrellus, Barbastella, Plecotus, Eptesicus, and Rhinolophus). Further analysis indicates that species-level determination is possible in some of these taxa, but it would more readily be achieved using the more advanced methods of collagen sequence analysis by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. Within our assemblage yielding similar to 6,800 ancient bone collagen fingerprints, we identified only similar to 1% that derived from chiropterans, and these were predominantly derived from Myotis (two apparent Brandt's bat fingerprints but the majority indistinguishable between the whiskered, Daubenton's and Natterer's bats), Barbastella (the western barbastelle being the only member of this genus known within Europe), and Rhinolophus (identified as the lesser horsehoe bat R. hipposideros rather than the rare greater horseshoe bat R. ferrumequinum). We infer that the site was likely used by roosting bats throughout the year, and the accumulation of these remains was probably not the result of predator activity. More importantly, the peptide biomarkers provided here could proove valuable in the more systematic analysis of microfaunal remains across many European archaeological and palaeontological sites, preferably those that are collected with well curated stratigraphical information and chronological frameworks.