Speaker Institution : Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park
Title : Reaching back in time with ancient DNA: opportunities and challenges
Abstract : Classically, the field of evolutionary biology compares present-day characteristics (both molecular and morphological data) together with morphological data from fossils to make inferences about evolutionary relationships and trajectories. However, technology now allows ancient DNA to be recovered from fossils up to 700,000 years old. The addition of time-series samples to molecular evolutionary analyses greatly increases their power to detect events such as selection and admixture. Not surprisingly, this fantastic ability brings challenges as well. In particular, contamination by modern humans remains a nagging concern for ancient DNA studies, particularly when studying ancient hominins. I will discuss different computational/theoretical approaches for handling this challenge.