Evolutionary patterns and processes: lessons from ancient DNA

Ever since its emergence in 1984, the field of ancient DNA has struggled to overcome the challenges related to the decay of DNA molecules in the fossil record. With the recent development of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and molecular techniques tailored to ultra-damaged templates, it has now come of age, merging together approaches in phylogenomics, population genomics, epigenomics, and metagenomics. Leveraging on complete temporal sample series, ancient DNA provides direct access to the most important dimension in evolution—time, allowing a wealth of fundamental evolutionary processes to be addressed at unprecedented resolution. This review taps into the most recent findings in ancient DNA research to present analyses of ancient genomic and metagenomic data.自1984年诞生以来，古DNA（ancient DNA）研究领域便始终致力于攻克化石记录中DNA分子降解所带来的各类挑战。随着近年来高通量DNA测序技术与适配超损伤模板的分子技术的发展，该领域现已走向成熟，并融合了系统发育基因组学、种群基因组学、表观基因组学与宏基因组学的研究路径。依托完整的时序样本序列，古DNA可直接触及进化研究中最为核心的维度——时间维度，使得诸多基础进化过程能够以前所未有的分辨率得到解析。本综述梳理古DNA研究领域的最新发现，对古基因组与宏基因组数据展开分析解读。