ArticleScience advances2023
Ancient DNA elucidates the lost world of western Indian Ocean giant tortoises and reveals a new extinct species from Madagascar.
Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Type Genomics: A Framework for Integrating Genomic Data into Biodiversity and Taxonomic Research.Systematic biology · 2025Guideline
- Epigenetic insights into extreme longevity in the world's oldest terrestrial animal, Jonathan.Science advances · 2026Article
- Mitogenomes reveal multiple evolutionary units and low genetic diversity of the critically endangered pancake tortoiseiScience · 2026Article
- Mid-Holocene aridity recorded in pygmy hippo and giant tortoise bone from southwest Madagascar.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
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- Novel phylogenomic inference and 'Out of Asia' biogeography of cobras, coral snakes and their allies.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Taking advantage of reference-guided assembly in a slowly-evolving lineage: Application to Testudo graeca.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Benchmarking software tools for trimming adapters and merging next-generation sequencing data for ancient DNA.Frontiers in bioinformatics · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Before humans arrived, giant tortoises occurred on many western Indian Ocean islands. We combined ancient DNA, phylogenetic, ancestral range, and molecular clock analyses with radiocarbon and paleogeographic evidence to decipher their diversity and biogeography. Using a mitogenomic time tree, we propose that the ancestor of the extinct Mascarene tortoises spread from Africa in the Eocene to now-sunken islands northeast of Madagascar. From these islands, the Mascarenes were repeatedly colonized. Another out-of-Africa dispersal (latest Eocene/Oligocene) produced on Madagascar giant, large, and small tortoise species. Two giant and one large species disappeared c. 1000 to 600 years ago, the latter described here as new to science using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. From Madagascar, the Granitic Seychelles were colonized (Early Pliocene) and from there, repeatedly Aldabra (Late Pleistocene). The Granitic Seychelles populations were eradicated and later reintroduced from Aldabra. Our results underline that integrating ancient DNA data into a multi-evidence framework substantially enhances the knowledge of the past diversity of island faunas.
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