Accurate Sex Identification of Ancient Elephant and Other Animal Remains Using Low-Coverage DNA Shotgun Sequencing Data.

ABSTRACT: Sex identification of ancient animal biological remains can benefit our understanding of historical population structure, demography and social behavior. Traditional methods for sex identification (e.g., osteological and morphometric comparisons) may be ineffective when animal remains are not well preserved, when sex distinguishing characteristics have not yet developed, or where organisms do not exhibit sex-associated phenotypic dimorphisms. Here we adapt a method developed for human sex determination so that it can be used to identify the sex of ancient and modern animal taxa. The method identifies sex by calculating the ratio of DNA reads aligning to the X chromosome to DNA reads aligning to autosomes (termed the Rx ratio). We tested the accuracy of this method using low c

SUBMITTER: de Flamingh A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7144076 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature