Collagen fingerprinting for the species identification of archaeological amphibian remains
Collagen fingerprinting for the species identification of archaeological amphibian remains
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DOI：
10.1111/bor.12443
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发表时间：
2020-05-20
期刊：
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Cheylan, Marc
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Buckley, Michael;Cheylan, Marc
众所周知，两栖动物是当今受环境变化威胁最严重的主要动物类群之一，但它们也是所有陆生脊椎动物中最不为人所知的动物之一。尽管考古和古生物学组合代表着比大多数其他脊椎动物类群更能反映古气候条件的宝贵资源，但当我们进一步回顾相对较近的过去时，这种知识差距就更大了。这部分源于对它们遗骸的研究通常要少得多，部分原因是基于骨骼形态（古代组合中残留的最常见组织）进行识别所需的专业知识形式不太常见。在这里，我们将胶原蛋白肽质量指纹识别生物分子物种的方法应用于英国晚更新世针孔洞组合（英国克雷斯韦尔克拉格斯）以及一系列相关的现存类群进行比较。我们的结果证明了在物种水平上与所调查的所有现代类群进行分离的能力，从而可以将这些考古遗迹识别为已知存在于晚更新世英国的两栖类类群。对针孔组合的分析发现，以前在该地点发现的两种物种（常见的青蛙和蟾蜍：分别是 Rana temporaria 和 Bufo bufo）占主导地位，还有少量以前在克雷斯韦尔峭壁地区未发现但从英国其他地点发现的稀有黑条蟾蜍（Epidalea calamita）；此外，一个样本似乎显示出沼泽青蛙（R. arvalis）的指纹，这种青蛙现已在英国灭绝。因此，胶原蛋白指纹图谱可以扩大已知的类群古生物多样性，并凸显了增强我们对过去气候变化的理解的进一步潜力。
Amphibians are well known as being one of the main groups of animals today most threatened by environmental changes but they are also some of the least well understood of all terrestrial vertebrates. This gap in knowledge is much greater as we look further back into the relatively recent past, despite representing an invaluable resources in archaeological and palaeontological assemblages that are more indicative of palaeoclimate conditions than most other vertebrate taxa. This in part stems from their remains being typically much less studied, partly due to the less common forms of expertise required for identifications based on skeletal morphology - the most frequently observed tissue that remains in ancient assemblages. Here we apply a method of biomolecular species identification by collagen peptide mass fingerprinting to the British Late Pleistocene assemblage of Pin Hole Cave (Creswell Crags, UK) as well as a range of relevant extant taxa for comparison. Our results demonstrate the ability to separate at the species level with all modern taxa investigated, allowing for the identification of these archaeological remains to the amphibian taxa known to exist in Late Pleistocene Britain. Analyses of the Pin Hole assemblage found a dominance of the two species previously known from the site (common frogs and toads: Rana temporaria and Bufo bufo, respectively) and also a small number of the rarer natterjack toad (Epidalea calamita) not previously identified in the Creswell Crags region but known from other sites in the UK; additionally, one specimen appeared to yield the fingerprint of the moor frog (R. arvalis), now extinct in the UK. As such, collagen fingerprinting is here shown to widen the known palaeobiodiversity of taxa, and highlights the further potential to enhance our understanding of climate change in the past.