Holocene wildfire and vegetation dynamics in Central Yakutia, Siberia, reconstructed from lake-sediment proxies by Ramesh Glückler, Ramesh Glückler, Rongwei Geng, Rongwei Geng, Rongwei Geng, Lennart Grimm, Izabella Baisheva, Izabella Baisheva, Izabella Baisheva, Ulrike Herzschuh, Ulrike Herzschuh, Ulrike Herzschuh, Kathleen R. Stoof-Leichsenring, Stefan Kruse, Andrei Andreev, Luidmila Pestryakova, Elisabeth Dietze, Elisabeth Dietze, Elisabeth Dietze

“…A pollen-based quantitative reconstruction of vegetation cover and a terrestrial plant record based on sedimentary ancient DNA metabarcoding suggest a pronounced shift in forest structure toward the Late Holocene. …”
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Organizing and running bioinformatics hackathons within Africa: The H3ABioNet cloud computing experience [version 2; peer review: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations] by Azza E. Ahmed, Phelelani T. Mpangase, Sumir Panji, Shakuntala Baichoo, Yassine Souilmi, Faisal M. Fadlelmola, Mustafa Alghali, Shaun Aron, Hocine Bendou, Eugene De Beste, Mamana Mbiyavanga, Oussema Souiai, Long Yi, Jennie Zermeno, Don Armstrong, Brian D. O'Connor, Liudmila Sergeevna Mainzer, Michael R. Crusoe, Ayton Meintjes, Peter Van Heusden, Gerrit Botha, Fourie Joubert, C. Victor Jongeneel, Scott Hazelhurst, Nicola Mulder

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Cultural and demic co-diffusion of Tubo Empire on Tibetan Plateau by Kongyang Zhu, Panxin Du, Jiyuan Li, Jianlin Zhang, Xiaojun Hu, Hailiang Meng, Liang Chen, Boyan Zhou, Xiaomin Yang, Jianxue Xiong, Edward Allen, Xiaoying Ren, Yi Ding, Yiran Xu, Xin Chang, Yao Yu, Sheng Han, Guanghui Dong, Chuan-Chao Wang, Shaoqing Wen

“…However, whether the Tubo expansion was cultural or demic remains unclear due to sparse ancient DNA sampling. Here, we reported ten ancient genomes at 0.017- to 0.867-fold coverages from the Dulan site with typical Tubo archaeological culture dating to 1308–1130 BP. …”
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Novel Sources of Biodiversity and Biomolecules from Bacteria Isolated from a High Middle Ages Soil Sample in Palermo (Sicily, Italy) by Alberto Vassallo, Alessandra Modi, Andrea Quagliariello, Giovanni Bacci, Teresa Faddetta, Michele Gallo, Aldesia Provenzano, Andrea La Barbera, Giovanna Lombardo, Valentina Maggini, Fabio Firenzuoli, Marco Zaccaroni, Giuseppe Gallo, David Caramelli, Carla Aleo Nero, Franco Baldi, Renato Fani, Antonio Palumbo Piccionello, Sandra Pucciarelli, Anna Maria Puglia, Luca Sineo

“…Finally, protocols commonly used for ancient DNA studies were applied to evaluate the antiquity of isolated bacterial strains. …”
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The extinct Sicilian wolf shows a complex history of isolation and admixture with ancient dogs by Marta Maria Ciucani, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Germán Hernández-Alonso, Alberto Carmagnini, Sabhrina Gita Aninta, Xin Sun, Camilla Hjorth Scharff-Olsen, Liam Thomas Lanigan, Ilaria Fracasso, Cecilie G. Clausen, Jouni Aspi, Ilpo Kojola, Laima Baltrūnaitė, Linas Balčiauskas, Jane Moore, Mikael Åkesson, Urmas Saarma, Maris Hindrikson, Pavel Hulva, Barbora Černá Bolfíková, Carsten Nowak, Raquel Godinho, Steve Smith, Ladislav Paule, Sabina Nowak, Robert W. Mysłajek, Sabrina Lo Brutto, Paolo Ciucci, Luigi Boitani, Cristiano Vernesi, Hans K. Stenøien, Oliver Smith, Laurent Frantz, Lorenzo Rossi, Francesco Maria Angelici, Elisabetta Cilli, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Shyam Gopalakrishnan

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Population turnover in remote Oceania shortly after initial settlement by Lipson, M, Skoglund, P, Spriggs, M, Valentin, F, Bedford, S, Shing, R, Buckley, H, Phillip, I, Ward, G, Mallick, S, Rohland, N, Broomandkhoshbacht, N, Cheronet, O, Ferry, M, Harper, T, Michel, M, Oppenheimer, J, Sirak, K, Stewardson, K, Auckland, K, Hill, A, Maitland, K, Oppenheimer, S, Parks, T, Robson, K, Williams, T, Kennett, D, Mentzer, A, Pinhasi, R, Reich, D

“…Ancient DNA from Vanuatu and Tonga dating to about 2,900–2,600 years ago (before present, BP) has revealed that the “First Remote Oceanians” associated with the Lapita archaeological culture were directly descended from the population that, beginning around 5000 BP, spread Austronesian languages from Taiwan to the Philippines, western Melanesia, and eventually Remote Oceania. …”