Authors: He Yu, Alexandra Jamieson, Ardern Hulme-Beaman, Chris J. Conroy, Becky Knight, Camilla Speller, Hiba Al-Jarah, Heidi Eager, Alexandra Trinks, Gamini Adikari, Henriette Baron, Beate Böhlendorf-Arslan, Wijerathne Bohingamuwa, Alison Crowther, Thomas Cucchi, Kinie Esser, Jeffrey Fleisher, Louisa Gidney, Elena Gladilina, Pavel Gol’din, Steven M. Goodman, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Richard Helm, Jesse C. Hillman, Nabil Kallala, Hanna Kivikero, Zsófia E. Kovács, Günther Karl Kunst, René Kyselý, Anna Linderholm, Bouthéina Maraoui-Telmini, Nemanja Marković, Arturo Morales-Muñiz, Mariana Nabais, Terry O’Connor, Tarek Oueslati, Eréndira M. Quintana Morales, Kerstin Pasda, Jude Perera, Nimal Perera, Silvia Radbauer, Joan Ramon, Eve Rannamäe, Joan Sanmartí Grego, Edward Treasure, Silvia Valenzuela-Lamas, Inge van der Jagt, Wim Van Neer, Jean-Denis Vigne, Thomas Walker, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Jørn Zeiler, Keith Dobney, Nicole Boivin, Jeremy B. Searle, Ben Krause-Kyora, Johannes Krause, Greger Larson, David Orton

Venue: Nature Communications

Type: Article

Abstract: The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we first generate a de novo genome assembly of the black rat. We then sequence 67 ancient and three modern black rat mitogenomes, and 36 ancient and three modern nuclear... (read more)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30009-z