A Paleogenomic Approach toward Reconstructing Bison Evolutionary History

Summary

This is an abstract from the "A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

At the end of the nineteenth century, overexploitation of bison reduced the population from an estimated 30 million to approximately 1,000 individuals. Despite the magnitude of this bottleneck, we do not understand how bison were affected at the genetic level, nor do we know past bison population structure or how these populations may have contributed ancestry differentially to today’s herds. Additionally, this event may have coincided with the introduction of cattle ancestry into bison herds, though the extent of such ancestry remains unclear. Ancient DNA has the potential to directly reveal bison evolutionary history that is obscured by recent demographic events. We sequenced low-coverage nuclear genomes of Holocene bison from across their range in North America to understand how genetic diversity was distributed over space and time. We find that past bison populations fall outside of the diversity of bison today, and that the modern structure of bison herds likely arose relatively recently though current populations are more strongly differentiated than in the past. We anticipate that better understanding past bison population structure and gene flow will allow for more effective management of bison herds which maximizes their genetic diversity and the future success of the species.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Further Discussion on the Role of Archaeology in Resource and Public Land Management   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37564.0