Phenotypic diversity in early Australian dingoes revealed by traditional and 3D geometric morphometric analysis

Here, we report on the results of microCT scanning and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of fragments of charred archaeological parenchyma collected from surface deposits at Nombe rockshelter in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Five fragments are taxonomically identified as sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas). Two subsamples from the largest fragment yield a combined AMS date range of c. 300–148 calBP (with median probabilities of 187 and 195 calBP respectively). Although post‐dating European voyaging in the Indo‐Pacific, these findings contribute to the corpus of information regarding the antiquity of sweet potato on the island of New Guinea.

Predator scat analysis was used to infer the potential impact of wild dogs (Canis lupus dingo, C. l. familiaris and hybrids of the two) on threatened native terrestrial mammals in coastal and near-coastal southern New South Wales, Australia. Prey items recorded in wild dog scats were compared with those occurring in scats of the red fox collected at the same study sites. Six threatened mammal species were recorded in either wild dog or fox scats: eastern pygmy possum, grey-headed flying fox, long-nosed potoroo, southern brown bandicoot, white-footed dunnart and yellow-bellied glider. The prevalence of these threatened species in fox scats was significantly higher than in wild dog scats. Otherwise, wild dogs mostly consumed larger prey items such as swamp wallabies and wombats whereas foxes more heavily preyed on small mammals such as antechinus and rats. Our results suggest that foxes are the major threat to threatened mammal species in the study region. Land management agencies in south-eastern mainland Australia should therefore focus on controlling foxes for biodiversity gain.

New Guinea is a region characterized by rapid oblique convergence between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates. The detailed tectonics of the region, including the partitioning of relative block motions and fault slip rates within this complex boundary plate boundary zone are still not well understood. In this study, we quantify the distribution of the deformation throughout the central and western parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG) using 20 yr of GPS data (1993-2014). We use an elastic block model to invert the regional GPS velocities as well as earthquake slip vectors for the location and rotation rates of microplate Euler poles as well as fault slip parameters in the region. Convergence between the Pacific and the Australian plates is accommodated in northwestern PNG largely by the New Guinea Trench with rates exceeding 90 mm yr-1, indicating that this is the major active interplate boundary. However, some convergent deformation is partitioned into a shear component with ∼12 per cent accommodated by the Bewani-Torricelli fault zone and the southern Highlands Fold-and-Thrust Belt. New GPS velocities in the eastern New Guinea Highlands region have led to the identification of the New Guinea Highlands and the Papuan Peninsula being distinctly different blocks, separated by a boundary through the Aure Fold-and-Thrust Belt complex which accommodates an estimated 4-5 mm yr-1 of left-lateral and 2-3 mm yr-1 of convergent motion. This implies that the Highlands Block is rotating in a clockwise direction relative to the rigid Australian Plate, consistent with the observed transition to left-lateral strike-slip regime observed in western New Guinea Highlands. We find a better fit of our block model to the observed velocities when assigning the current active boundary between the Papuan Peninsula and the South Bismark Block to be to the north of the city of Lae on the Gain Thrust, rather than on the more southerly Ramu-Markham fault as previously thought. This may indicate a temporary shift of activity onto out of sequence thrusts like the Gain Thrust as opposed to the main frontal thrust (the Ramu-Markham fault). In addition, we show that the southern Highlands Fold-and-Thrust Belt is the major boundary between the rigid Australian Plate and the New Guinea Highlands Block, with convergence occurring at rates between ∼6 and 13 mm yr-1.

[1] The Pallett Creek paleoseismic record occupies a keystone position in most attempts to develop rupture histories for the southern San Andreas fault. Previous estimates of earthquake ages at Pallett Creek were determined by decay counting radiocarbon methods. That method requires large samples which can lead to unaccounted sources of uncertainty in radiocarbon ages because of the heterogeneous composition of organic layers. In contrast, accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates may be obtained from small samples that have known carbon sources and also allow for a more complete sampling of the section. We present 65 new AMS radiocarbon dates that span nine ground-rupturing earthquakes at Pallett Creek. Overall, the AMS dates are similar to and reveal no dramatic bias in the conventional dates. For many layers, however, individual charcoal samples were younger than the conventional dates, leading to earthquake ages that are overall slightly younger than previously reported. New earthquake ages are determined by Bayesian refinement of the layer ages based on stratigraphic ordering and sedimentological constraints. The new chronology is more regular than previously published records in large part due to new samples constraining the age of event R. The closed interval from event C to 1857 has a mean recurrence of 135 years (σ = 83.2 years) and a quasiperiodic coefficient of variation (COV) of 0.61. We show that the new dates and resultant earthquake chronology have a stronger effect on COV than the specific membership of this long series and dating precision improvements from sedimentation rates.

To investigate movements and habitat selection by wild dogs we attached satellite-linked global positioning system (GPS) units to nine wild dogs (Canis lupus dingo and Canis lupus familiaris) captured in eastern Victoria in summer 2007. Units estimated locations at 30-min intervals for the first six months and then at 480-min intervals for six more months. DNA testing revealed all these wild dogs to be related. Home ranges of males were almost three times larger than those of females (males: 124.3 km2 ± 56.3, n = 4; females: 45.2 km2 ± 17.3, n = 5) and both sexes preferred subalpine grassland, shrub or woodland at the landscape and home-range scales. Wild dogs were recorded more often than expected within 25 m of roads and less often than expected within 25 m of watercourses. Wild dogs displayed higher-velocity movements with shallow turning angles (generally forwards) that connected spatial and temporal clusters comprising slower-velocity, shorter, and sharper turning movements. One wild dog travelled 230 km in 9 days before returning to its home range and another travelled 105 km in 87 days. The home-range sizes reported in this study are much larger than previously reported in south-eastern Australia. This finding, together with previous studies, suggests that the spatial scale at which wild dog management occurs needs to be reconsidered.

Occurrence of tongue worm, Linguatula cf. serrata (Pentastomida: Linguatulidae) in wild canids and livestock in south-eastern Australia.

An analysis of eight microsatellite loci in 213 animals was performed to define the genetic structure and variability of 11 East Asian native dog populations. Allele diversity, observed heterozygosities, expected heterozygosities, F-statistics, G(ST) estimates, number of migrants per generation (Nm), and Nei's DA distance were calculated. Expected mean heterozygosities of Asian native dogs varied within a range of 0.310-0.718 with a mean value of 0.580. In a sample of 11 Asian dogs, the highest genetic diversity was exhibited in the Korean native dogs and the lowest in the Shiba, the Japanese native dog. All populations except the Kishu and Akita showed statistically significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium at more than one locus. After corrections for multiple significance tests, deviations over all loci were statistically significant in 7 of 11 dog populations, meaning that Asian dogs are genetically subdivided (global F(ST) = 0.154). Despite the locus-specific deviations, statistically significant departures from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium reflect deviations in the direction of heterozygote deficit, the global F(IS) being 0.072. In the neighbor-joining and unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean (UPGMA) dendrograms based on Nei's DA distance, the Korean native breeds (the Sapsaree and the Jindo) were grouped together, then with the Eskimo dog. The two Japanese native dogs (the Hokkaido and the Akita) also clustered together, with moderate bootstrap support. In spite of some deviation, the three-dimensional scattergram based on principal components supported the conclusions suggested by the dendrograms based on Nei's DA distance. From these two analyses, the Korean native dogs formed the closest groups and then showed a close relationship to the Eskimo dogs, reflecting the fact that the Korean native dogs might be originated from dogs in the northern part of Far East Asia.

There is much interest in understanding how anthropogenic food resources subsidise carnivore populations. Carcasses of hunter-shot ungulates are a potentially substantial food source for mammalian carnivores. The sambar deer (Rusa unicolor) is a large (≥150 kg) exotic ungulate that can be hunted throughout the year in south-eastern Australia, and hunters are not required to remove or bury carcasses. We investigated how wild dogs/dingoes and their hybrids (Canis lupus familiaris/dingo), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and feral cats (Felis catus) utilised sambar deer carcasses during the peak hunting seasons (i.e. winter and spring). We placed carcasses at 1-km intervals along each of six transects that extended 4-km into forest from farm boundaries. Visits to carcasses were monitored using camera traps, and the rate of change in edible biomass estimated at ∼14-day intervals. Wild dogs and foxes fed on 70% and 60% of 30 carcasses, respectively, but feral cats seldom (10%) fed on carcasses. Spatial and temporal patterns of visits to carcasses were consistent with the hypothesis that foxes avoid wild dogs. Wild dog activity peaked at carcasses 2 and 3 km from farms, a likely legacy of wild dog control, whereas fox activity peaked at carcasses 0 and 4 km from farms. Wild dog activity peaked at dawn and dusk, whereas nearly all fox activity occurred after dusk and before dawn. Neither wild dogs nor foxes remained at carcasses for long periods and the amount of feeding activity by either species was a less important predictor of the loss of edible biomass than season. Reasons for the low impacts of wild dogs and foxes on sambar deer carcass biomass include the spatially and temporally unpredictable distribution of carcasses in the landscape, the rapid rate of edible biomass decomposition in warm periods, low wild dog densities and the availability of alternative food resources.

Context Wild dogs, including dingoes and dingo cross-breeds, are vertebrate pests when they cause financial losses and emotional costs by harming livestock or pets, threaten human safety or endanger native fauna. Tools for lethal management of these animals currently include aerial baiting with poisoned baits. In New South Wales (NSW), Australia, aerial baiting was previously permitted at a rate of 40 baits km−1 but a maximum rate of 10 baits km−1 was subsequently prescribed by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. The efficacy of these baiting rates has not been quantified in eastern Australia, undermining the value of the policy and rendering adaptive management efforts difficult, at best. Aim To quantify the mortality rate of wild dogs exposed to aerial baiting at historic and currently approved rates, i.e. 40 baits per kilometre and 10 baits per kilometre, respectively. Methods Wild dog mortality rates were measured at sites in mesic north-eastern NSW, where aerial baiting was applied to control wild dogs and contrasted with sites and individuals where no baiting was undertaken. In total, 132 wild dogs were trapped and fitted with GPS-VHF telemetry collars before annual aerial baiting programs. Collars were used to locate animals after aerial baiting and to determine the fates of individuals. Key results 90.6% of collared wild dogs exposed to aerial baiting at 40 baits km−1 died, whereas only 55.3% of those exposed to 10 baits km−1 died (Welsh’s t = 4.478, P = 0.004, v = 6.95). All wild dogs that were not exposed to toxic baits survived during the same periods. Conclusion Managers using aerial baiting to maximise wild dog mortality in mesic south-eastern Australia should use 40 baits km−1 rather than 10 baits km−1. Implications Wild dog population reduction for mitigation of livestock and faunal predation requires the application of efficacious control. The currently prescribed maximum aerial baiting rate of 10 baits km−1 is inadequate for controlling wild dog populations in mesic forest environments in NSW.

ABSTRACTMedieval manuscripts are invaluable archives of the written history of our past. Manuscripts can be dated and localized paleographically, but this method has its limitations. The Fragmenta membranea manuscript collection at the National Library of Finland has proved difficult to date using paleographic methods. Radiocarbon dating has been applied to manuscripts of parchment before, but a systematic protocol for radiocarbon dating of parchment has not been established with a minimally destructive sampling strategy. In this work, we have established a radiocarbon dating procedure for parchments combining a clean-room based chemical pretreatment process, elemental analyzer combustion, automatic graphitization and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurements to reduce the AMS target size from a typical 1 mg of carbon. Prolonged acid treatment resulted in improved dating accuracy, since this is consistent with the manufacturing process of medieval parchment involving a lime bath. Two different combustion processes were compared. The traditional closed tube combustion (CTC) method provided a well-established though labor-intensive way to produce 1 mg AMS targets. The Elemental Analyzer-based process (EA-HASE, Elemental Analyzer Helsinki Adaptive Sample prEparation line), is designed for fast combustion and smaller sample sizes. The EA-HASE process was capable of reproducing the simulated radiocarbon ages of known-age samples with AMS graphite target sizes of 0.3 mg of carbon, corresponding to a 3 mm2 area of a typical medieval parchment. The full potential of the process to go down to as little as 50 μg will be further explored in the future in parallel to studies of sample-specific contamination issues.

Radiocarbon dating of prehistoric hearths in alpine northern Sweden: problems and possibilities

Ancient bone collagen retains valuable information. Radiocarbon dating, thermal dating, species identification, cladistics analyses, and paleodietary reconstruction efforts all use bone collagen from ancient samples. Experimentally derived models of the temperature-dependent collagen half-life and thus of collagen’s expected shelf life under optimum preservation conditions currently stand at odds with literature reports of collagen remnants in bones with great apparent ages. These issues cause debate about bone collagen longevity. The situation highlights a need to better understand bone collagen preservation conditions and thus to apply new analytical tools to ancient and modern bone samples. In response, this study applies established techniques to ancient bone for the first time. Appropriate samples of ancient bone were first collected and catalogued. They include specimens ranging from Medieval to Paleozoic settings and involve partnerships with six permanent repositories. This thesis describes the novel application of second-harmonic generation (SHG) imaging, an established technique in biomedical science, to ancient bone. In this study, four separate and independent techniques confirmed that SHG reliably detects trace amounts of collagen protein in certain Medieval and Ice Age bone samples. Additional results indicate that SHG detects faint traces of collagen in unexpectedly old bone samples, including dinosaur bones. The technique demonstrated a high degree of sensitivity to small amounts of collagen, plus the potential to explore the micromorphology of collagen decay in bone and other collagenous tissues. The second novel application was Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Recent studies demonstrated its usefulness for bone collagen content estimates in forensic analyses of bone remains. This study extended its application to Medieval, Ice Age, Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Devonian samples and found a general trend of diminishing collagen signal with older bones. FTIR was also used for the first time to assess bone collagen integrity in an artificial decay experiment. In addition, the applicability of Raman spectroscopy to ancient bone was explored. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) was also used to measure stable and unstable carbon ratios in many of the same ancient bone samples used above. AMS 13C results brought forth two main conclusions. They confirmed the accuracy of preliminary results obtained using a recently developed portable quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) to detect stable isotopes including 13C and 12C ratios from the bioapatite fraction of Medieval bone. They also confirm for the first time a co-occurrence of primary (i.e., original to the organism) isotopic signatures in fossil bones with primary organic signatures. Analysis of published Cretaceous vertebrate fossils with biological stable isotope ratios matched this co-occurrence. Finally, the first AMS 14C results from Cretaceous bone collagen are presented. 14C results discriminated between modern, medieval, Roman era, and ice age, but not between Cretaceous and Jurassic time frames. Overall results suggest that the application of novel techniques like SHG will help detect and further characterise ancient bone collagen. Also, low cost, nearly nondestructive tools like FTIR and QMS show promise to aid continued discoveries of original isotope ratios and biological remnants like bone collagen in fossils from widening geographic and geological ranges.

ObjectivesWe hypothesize that three-dimensional (3D) geometric analyses in weight bearing CT-images of the foot and ankle are more reproducible compared to two-dimensional (2D) analyses. Therefore, we compared 2D and 3D analyses on bones of weight-bearing and non weight-bearing cone-beam CT images of healthy volunteers. MethodsTwenty healthy volunteers (10 male, 10 female, mean age 37.5 years) underwent weight-bearing and non weight-bearing cone-beam CT imaging of both feet. Clinically relevant height and angle measurements were performed in 2D and 3D (for example: cuboid height, calcaneal pitch, talo-calcaneal angle, Meary's angle, intermetatarsal angle). Three-dimensional measurements were obtained using automated software. Intra-observer and inter-observer agreement were evaluated for all 2D measurements. ResultsOverall intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC’s) were higher than 0.750 for most 2D measurements, ranging from 0.352 to 0.995. Calcaneal pitch, angle between the first metatarsal (MT1) and proximal phalange 1, between the fifth metatarsal (MT5) and the calcaneus and heights of the sesamoid bones, navicular, cuboid and talus decreased during weight-bearing in both 2D and 3D results (p < 0.01). Meary’s angle was not statistically different in 2D (p = 0.627) and 3D (p = 0.765). Higher coefficients of variation in 2D geometric analysis parameters (0.27 versus 0.16) indicate that 3D analyses are more precise compared to 2D (p < 0.01). Results of left and right feet are comparable for 2D and 3D analyses. ConclusionAlthough 2D and 3D geometrical analyses are fundamentally different, automated 3D analyses are more reproducible and precise compared to 2D analyses. In addition, 3D evaluation better demonstrates differences in bone configurations between weight-bearing and non weight-bearing conditions, which may be of value to demonstrate pathology.

Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of sediments inconjunction with accelerator-mass-spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of organic materials have been carried out on Quaternary samples from Ban Bom Luang trench, northern Thailand and Thung Tuk archaelogical site, southern Thailand. These two sites permit detailed comparisons of thermoluminescence and radiocarbon chronologies. Both techniques produce self-consistent chronologies for the colluvial deposits (Ban Bom Luang trench) and beach sand deposits with the ancient remain (Thung Tuk archaeological site). In case of TL dating focuses are placed on problems connected with equivalent dose (ED) estimation. The dated results obtained by using two techniques: regeneration and total bleach techniques were compared with AMS radiocarbon dating. The obtained results show that the ED values are strongly dependent on the applied technique. Most of TL ages obtained by the regeneration technique were confirmed by AMS radiocarbon ages while total blench technique seems tobe discrepancy. The discrepancy dates evaluated by total bleach technique effect from supralinear (underestimation), superlinear (overestimation) and saturation (overestimation). In order to make the TL-dating results more reliable and accurate, we compared the TL-age dating results with those of the radiocarbon ages and the widely accepted other ages from selected samples of the same sedimentary layers from various places in Thailand. The calibration curve of TL and other dating results displays a good positive correlation with the linear regression of about 0.992. This strongly advocates that our current TL-age dating results are more consistent with that of the AMS radiocarbon dating than that of the conventional radiocarbon dating. Moreover, the TL dating method is more powerful than the AMS radiocarbon dating in a sense that the TL data are well applicable to the fine-grained quartz-rich sediments of up to 2 Ma and tektite samples of about 0.7 Ma

ABSTRACTWe obtained radiocarbon (14C) dates with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) of vascular plant samples and a charcoal sample collected from peat deposits near the prehistoric village site informally designated CR-03 on Carlisle Island in the Islands of Four Mountains group, Alaska, to determine the eruption age of the CR-02 tephra. A fine vitric ash erupted from Okmok caldera, Umnak Island (ca. 2 ka BP) was also discovered in the bog. The ages of the CR-02 tephra and Okmok II ash are estimated to be 1050 and 2000 cal BP, respectively. Because both tephras are distinctive and widespread, these are important chronostratigraphic markers for archaeological sites in this island group. The 14C dates obtained from this bog are 800 years younger than the dates of the charcoal fragments from cultural layers in the Unit 3 of prehistoric village site CR-02 (AMK-0003).