Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E39
Höfundar / Authors: Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir1, Oliver Kersten1, Bastiaan Star1, Heidi Nistelberger1, Juha Kantanen3, Nils Christian Stenseth1, Jón Hallsteinn Hallsson2, Sanne Boessenkool1
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: University of Oslo
Kynnir / Presenter: Albína Hulda Pálsdóttir
Sheep played a vital role in the settlement of the North Atlantic in the Viking Age, providing wool for clothing and the sails of Viking ships in addition to milk, meat, skins and horns. Despite their importance we know little about how the rapid settlement of the North Atlantic shaped the population structure and genetic diversity of sheep and how the local breeds in the North Atlantic region have changed through a thousand years of isolation. We sequenced over 80 ancient sheep bones from archaeological excavations in the North Atlantic resulting in 28 ancient sheep genomes (800-1700 CE) with average coverage of 3,7X and eight genomes from modern landrace breeds present in the region. The population history of sheep in the North Atlantic is more complicated than previously thought with some evidence of admixture of sheep from Norway and the UK during the founding of the Icelandic sheep population. The sheep population in Norse Greenland is clearly founded from Iceland. In Greenland we observe a loss of heterozygosity and increases in inbreeding over time, probably related to population decline associated with the collapse of the Norse settlement in Greenland. Our data shows a large reduction in genomic diversity of sheep in the North Atlantic from the Viking and Medieval period to the modern sheep breeds in the region, specifically in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.