TY - JOUR

T1 - The Baltic grey seal

T2 - A 9000-year history of presence and absence

AU - Ahlgren, Hans

AU - Bro-Jørgensen, Maiken Hemme

AU - Glykou, Aikaterini

AU - Schmölcke, Ulrich

AU - Angerbjörn, Anders

AU - Olsen, Morten Tange

AU - Lidén, Kerstin

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) has been part of the Baltic Sea fauna for more than 9000 years and has ever since been subjected to extensive human hunting, particularly during the early phases of its presence in the Baltic Sea, but also in the early 20th century. In order to study their temporal genetic structure and to investigate whether there has been a genetically continuous grey seal population in the Baltic, we generated mitochondrial control region data from skeletal remains from ancient grey seals from the archaeological sites Stora Förvar (Sweden) and Neustadt (Germany) and compared these with modern grey seal data. We found that the majority of the Mesolithic grey seals represent haplotypes that is not found in contemporary grey seals, indicating that the Baltic Sea population went extinct, likely due to human overexploitation and environmental change. We hypothesize that grey seals recolonised the Baltic Sea from the North Sea. during the Bronze Age or Iron Age, and that the contemporary Baltic grey seal population is direct descendants of this recolonisation. Our study highlights the power of biomolecular archaeology to understand the factors that shape contemporary marine diversity.

AB - The grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) has been part of the Baltic Sea fauna for more than 9000 years and has ever since been subjected to extensive human hunting, particularly during the early phases of its presence in the Baltic Sea, but also in the early 20th century. In order to study their temporal genetic structure and to investigate whether there has been a genetically continuous grey seal population in the Baltic, we generated mitochondrial control region data from skeletal remains from ancient grey seals from the archaeological sites Stora Förvar (Sweden) and Neustadt (Germany) and compared these with modern grey seal data. We found that the majority of the Mesolithic grey seals represent haplotypes that is not found in contemporary grey seals, indicating that the Baltic Sea population went extinct, likely due to human overexploitation and environmental change. We hypothesize that grey seals recolonised the Baltic Sea from the North Sea. during the Bronze Age or Iron Age, and that the contemporary Baltic grey seal population is direct descendants of this recolonisation. Our study highlights the power of biomolecular archaeology to understand the factors that shape contemporary marine diversity.

KW - aDNA

KW - Baltic Sea

KW - extirpation

KW - Grey Seal

KW - hunting

KW - mitogenomes

U2 - 10.1177/09596836221080764

DO - 10.1177/09596836221080764

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85126047611

VL - 32

SP - 569

EP - 577

JO - Holocene

JF - Holocene

SN - 0959-6836

IS - 6

ER -