ColdRein: Palaeo-genomics to reconstruct the evolutionary responses of endemic high-arctic reindeer to past environmental change
Informations
- Funding country
Norway- Acronym
- -
- URL
- -
- Start date
- 1/1/2021
- End date
- 12/31/2025
- Budget
- 1,474,524 EUR
Fundings
| Name | Role | Start | End | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FRIMEDBIO - Independent projects - Medicine, Health Sciences and Biology | Grant | - | - | 1,474,524 EUR |
Abstract
Understanding how—and how fast—organisms can respond to environmental change is key for predicting their resilience in facing global climate change. This is especially true in the Arctic, which is experiencing the most pronounced warming. Svalbard, an isolated, High-Arctic archipelago and the fastest warming site on Earth, is home to an endemic subspecies of wild reindeer that is uniquely adapted to its extreme Arctic home. Following colonization of Svalbard millennia ago, the population evolved several adaptations to this harsh and highly stochastic environment, including thick fur, a small body, a highly specialized diet, and altered metabolism. This project seeks to directly assess how these isolated animals were able to adapt to a harsh and highly stochastic environment. To accomplish this, we will apply powerful evolutionary simulations and implement cutting-edge approaches to analyze hundreds of whole-genome sequences from modern reindeer populations from polar regions, including Svalbard. We will use this information to investigate how long-term changes in population size and dispersal reflect changes in the environment, such as gain or loss of sea ice corridors. Then, using genome sequences derived from ancient reindeer bones and antlers collected from the archipelago, we’ll look directly back in time through the history of Svalbard reindeer evolution, identifying the genetic changes that enabled the reindeer’s rapid evolution, and tracking these changes in time and space. 2022-12-18. Update. The project website has been established (www.coldrein.org), the first postdoc has been hired since 01.07.22. All the sequencing of the modern genomes for the project has been completed. A large field campaign to collect approximately 300 new bone/antler materials from Svalbard has been completed, and the work to genetically screening and radiocarbon-date these materials is underway. A paper reporting some first results regarding the genomic diversity of modern Svalbard reindeer has been submitted for publication.