Genomic Structure of Founder Events in the 17th Century Chesapeake

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This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Deborah Bolnick at the University of Connecticut, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist assessing how founder effects shaped patterns of genomic variation during the 17th century colonization of the Chesapeake colonies (Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware). This project seeks to (1) characterize the genomes of archaeological individuals recovered from the Jamestown archaeological site, compare their genomic variation with (2) additional 17th century Chesapeake archaeological burials, and (3) with contemporary descendant populations in the other regions to assess if and when initial founder events contributed to contemporary genomic variation in the region. This research utilizes a community engaged framework, in which successive outreach programs and workshops held in collaboration with the Jamestown Rediscovery Project share progress and the results of the research with community stakeholders.When new populations are founded, the founders carry a random subset of the total genetic variation present in the ancestral source population, which can greatly influence genomic variation in descendant populations. This is especially relevant for understanding which of the multiple waves of migration have contributed most to contemporary population diversity. Genomic comparisons between contemporary and archaeological populations allows us to revisit this issue from a new perspective. In this project, we will sequence the genomes of archaeological individuals belonging to the first (A.D. 1607) settlers in Jamestown, Virginia. Their genomes will be compared with additional archaeological genomes from three sites in 17th century Chesapeake region as well as contemporary populations from other regions. Through this approach, we will directly assess population structure across archaeological sites, and determine the degree of similarity with contemporary populations. Due to rapid population turnover characteristic of 17th century Chesapeake settler populations, we expect that later population movements in the 17th century Chesapeake contributed more to contemporary population diversity than did earlier settlements. By analyzing the genomes of a time series of archaeological samples throughout the 17th century, beginning with the first settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, we can reconstruct the genomic population structure through 17th century Chesapeake to determine how and when founder events in colonization contexts began to contribute to present-day population diversity in the region.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.