Comparative and population genomic studies of Madagascar's extinct subfossil lemurs

人类大约在2,300年前才到达马达加斯加岛。从那时起，人类通过砍伐森林和狩猎活动影响了该岛的环境及其独特的生物多样性。因此，许多马达加斯加动物物种面临灭绝的危险。例如，马达加斯加岛的100种狐猴中有70%以上被国际自然保护联盟认为是濒危或极度濒危的。此外，从未矿化的骨骼遗骸中，我们知道至少有17种现已灭绝的“亚化石”狐猴物种，其中一些生活在500年前或更早。所有灭绝的物种都比现存的狐猴物种大，有些甚至大到雄性大猩猩的大小。本研究旨在利用古DNA方法和大规模平行测序技术对已灭绝的亚化石狐猴物种进行遗传学研究，并对已灭绝的狐猴物种和现存的狐猴物种进行遗传学比较。这些比较对于了解灭绝物种本身的历史非常重要，也有助于扩大我们对马达加斯加人类与环境相互作用历史的理解，并确定主要的狐猴灭绝风险因素-这些知识可能会影响仍然存活的狐猴物种的保护工作的优先顺序。研究人员将从亚化石狐猴骨骼中提取骨骼和牙齿样本，以提取DNA并对17种已灭绝的亚化石狐猴物种中的14种个体以及其中7种物种的种群样本进行完整的线粒体基因组测序。为了进行比较，研究人员还将对10种现存狐猴种群的完整线粒体基因组进行测序。 拟议的研究将涉及美国学术机构和马达加斯加塔那那利佛大学之间的国际合作。这项工作将为美国和马达加斯加的研究生提供广泛的培训，并将有助于建立马达加斯加基因组学数据分析的能力。除了这项工作产生的主要科学出版物外，这项研究的保护意义将在一篇提交给开放获取期刊《马达加斯加保护发展》的文章中进行总结，以促进研究结果的保护意义的广泛传播。

Humans arrived to the island of Madagascar only approximately 2,300 years ago. Since that time, humans have affected the island's environment and its unique biodiversity through deforestation and hunting practices. As a result, many Malagasy animal species are at risk for extinction. For example, over 70% of the island's 100 species of lemurs, the primates of Madagascar, are considered Endangered or Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. In addition, from unmineralized skeletal remains, we know of at least 17 now-extinct "subfossil" lemur species, some of which lived as recently as 500 years ago, or less. All of the extinct species were larger than every living lemur species, and some substantially so, up to the size of a male gorilla. This study aims to use ancient DNA methods and massively parallel sequencing technology for genetic studies of the extinct subfossil lemur species, and to make genetic comparisons between the extinct and living lemur species. These comparisons are important for understanding the history of the extinct species themselves, but also for broadening our understanding of the history of human-environment interactions on Madagascar and for identifying primary lemur extinction risk factors - knowledge which may influence the prioritization of conservation efforts for the still surviving lemur species. Researchers will sample bone and teeth from subfossil lemur skeletons to extract DNA and sequence complete mitochondrial genomes from single individuals of 14 of the 17 extinct subfossil lemur species, as well as from population samples of seven of these species. For comparative purposes, the researchers also will sequence complete mitochondrial genomes from populations of 10 living lemur species. The proposed research will involve international collaborations between US academic institutions and the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar. This work will provide extensive training for both US and Malagasy graduate students, and will help build the capacity for genomics data analysis in Madagascar. In addition to the primary scientific publications resulting from this work, the conservation implications of the study will be summarized in an article submitted to the open access journal Madagascar Conservation & Development, facilitating broad dissemination of the conservation significance of the research results.