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Primer Extension Capture: Targeted Sequence Retrieval from Heavily Degraded DNA Sources
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Published on: September 3, 2009

Unexpectedly many extinct hominins.

Folmer Bokma1, Valentijn van den Brink, Tanja Stadler

  • 1Department of Ecology and Environmental Science and IceLab, Umeå University, Sweden. folmer.bokma@emg.umu.se

Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution
|September 6, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Estimating extinct hominin species reveals an expected 8, with a potential of 27. Recent extinctions suggest a wave of species loss, possibly driven by Homo sapiens.

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Area of Science:

  • Paleoanthropology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Phylogenetics

Background:

  • Debate exists on hominin species classification, with
  • splitters
  • recognizing over 20 species and
  • lumpers
  • suggesting fewer lineages.
  • The exact number of extinct hominin species remains unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To estimate the number of speciation events and contemporary species within hominin phylogeny.
  • To determine the expected and maximum number of extinct hominin species.
  • To assess the likelihood of recent species disappearances due to background extinction.

Main Methods:

  • Development of probability distributions for speciation events and contemporary species counts.
  • Estimation of hominin speciation and extinction rates.
  • Statistical analysis to evaluate extinction event likelihoods.

Main Results:

  • The expected total number of extinct hominin species is 8, with a possible maximum of 27.
  • It is highly improbable that three recent species extinctions resulted from natural background extinction.
  • Evidence for distinct Neanderthal and Denisova hominin species suggests a recent extinction wave.

Conclusions:

  • The study provides a statistical framework for estimating extinct hominin diversity.
  • Recent extinction patterns may challenge the classification of hominin remains as distinct species.
  • The findings suggest that Homo sapiens may have driven a recent wave of hominin extinctions.