Lars Littmann will have a poster (nr. 097) titled "using historical clouded appollo specimens to track genomic erosion in Sweden" tomorrow as well.

@jonasoppenheimer.bsky.social will have a poster (nr. B269) titled "Yak X: an archaic bovine from Denisova Cave" also tomorrow in session B.

@reyhanyaka.bsky.social will have a poster (nr. B226) titled "The Royal Warship Kronan: Revealing the Crew through Archaeogenomics" tomorrow in session B.

@mootspoints.bsky.social will have a poster (nr. 268) titled "Extending the Shelf Life: Optimizing Ancient DNA Recovery from Highly Degraded Material in Museum Collections" tomorrow in the session "L03 Beyond limits: unlocking the potential of ancient animal genomics".

@zoepochon.bsky.social will present her talk "Parvovirus B19 from early modern warships suggests genotype 2 continuity in Europe, bridging a millennium-long gap" tomorrow at 15:50 in the session "L06 From Ancient Pathogen Genomics to Palaeoepidemiology".

Michael Mitschke will be talking about "Signals of hybridization between commercial and wild bumblebees revealed by museum genomics" tomorrow at 12:00, also in the session "Open 3: Ancient and Historical genomes".

Tomorrow we will have @amanda-meuser.bsky.social talking about "Evolutionary dynamics of extinct and extant moose hybridization in North America" at 10:20 in the session "Open 3: Ancient and Historical genomes".

@amandalindahl.bsky.social will present her poster nr. 344 titled "A genomic perspective on the evolution of modern water voles (Arvicola sp.)" in session "S05 Molecular Evolution in the Era of Genetic Diversity Decline" today 18:00-20:00.

Huge congratulations to lead author David Stanton, as well as all co-authors and collaborators who helped make this study possible!

Photo: The female cave lion cub named Sparta, whose genome was sequenced in this study (photo taken by Love Dalén)

🧵 9/9

Ancient DNA is revealing that many extinct species had much deeper and more complex histories than we once imagined.

The cave lion was the product of nearly 2 million years of independent evolution.

Photo: Skull of cave lion (photo taken by Love Dalén)

🧵 8/9

One surprise: cave lions do not appear to have been in a long-term demographic decline before extinction.

Their effective population size may actually have exceeded that of modern African lions.

Image: Population size changes in lions over time

🧵 7/9

We also identified cave-lion-specific genetic changes in genes linked to neurological function, vision and the circulatory system.

Potential clues to how these animals adapted to Ice Age environments.

Image: Functions linked to genetic changes in cave lions

🧵 6/9

Even more remarkably, the amount of modern lion ancestry in cave lions increased during glacial periods and decreased during warmer intervals.

Climate appears to have repeatedly brought the two species together.

Image: Amount of interbreeding was correlated with global ice volume

🧵 5/9

But despite this deep divergence, cave lions and the ancestors of modern lions occasionally interbred.

Their genomes preserve the signatures of those ancient encounters.

Image: The extinct modern lion population from southwest Asia showed the best evidence for modern <-> cave interbreeding.

🧵 4/9

Our results show that cave lions were not just a northern population of modern lions.

They represented a distinct evolutionary lineage that persisted in Eurasia for nearly 2 million years.

Image: A) cave lion samples, B) modern and cave lions were distinct lineages, C) modern lion samples

🧵 3/9

The cave lion was one of the most successful predators of the Ice Age.

It ranged from Britain to Alaska and is immortalized in spectacular prehistoric cave art.

Picture: European cave lions in Chauvet Cave, museum replica (WikiCommons)

🧵 2/9