CIIMAR’s Oceanus Seminar with Catarina Ginja | Boca da Baleia, CIIMAR
Domestic cattle derive from two aurochs’ domestications: Bos taurus in the Fertile Crescent and Bos indicus in the Indus Valley, with no strong evidence for a third event in North Africa. However, across 10,000 years, admixture has reshaped cattle genomes. Admixture between divergent lineages has been a major evolutionary force, shaping genomic diversity, adaptation, and the emergence of hybrid populations across Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Male-mediated gene flow spread indicine ancestry into tropical herds, while aurochs introgression occurred through multiple local hybridization events. I will discuss the results of key studies by our team, including aurochs’ introgression into Iron Age North African cattle, mosaic Creole populations of the Americas, and highly diverse Iberian breeds, to illustrate how admixture can facilitate adaptation to changing environments.
Catarina Ginja is an assistant researcher at BIOPOLIS/CIBIO, University of Porto. She was awarded a Marie Curie fellowship in 2010 and initiated an innovative Archaeogenetics research. Her work focuses on the temporal and geographic dynamics shaping the genomes of domestic animals, using genomics and bioinformatics to study their origins, evolution, and improvement. She is a cattle specialist for the FAO/ISAG Committee on Animal Genetic Diversity, collaborates with breeder associations on conservation strategies for animal genetic resources and promotes Art&Science initiatives.
In case of any questions, please contact CIIMAR’s Seminar team at seminars@ciimar.up.pt