Of mice and men: what the house mouse can reveal about us
Posted on 1 October 2008
Because humans, from the Vikings to British settlers in New Zealand, have often unwittingly provided sea passage for the tiny rodents, the global colonisation history of mice reflects the history of human movements.
Future studies with mice may help us to document more fine-scale Viking movements such as the colonisation of different parts of Faroe, Iceland and even North America
Professor Jeremy Searle
Two papers published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B show how scientists have used the genetic traits of mice, particularly DNA sequences, to plot their movement across the globe.
Teams of international scientists led by Professor Jeremy Searle, of the Department of Biology at York, found that mice from northern and western parts of the British Isles apparently colonised with the Norwegian Vikings. House mice from elsewhere in the British Isles reflect both Iron Age movements of people and the earlier development of large human settlements necessary for viable mouse populations.
On the other side of the world, the scientists’ data suggested that New Zealand was colonised by a large influx of house mice from the British Isles, consistent with human settlement history. But as well as the western European subspecies of house mouse, eastern European and southern Asian subspecies also occur in New Zealand, reflecting the arrivals of settlers of other origins.
Professor Searle said: "Future studies with mice may help us to document more fine-scale Viking movements such as the colonisation of different parts of Faroe, Iceland and even North America.
"And the cultural mix of people in New Zealand has created a genetic melting pot of mice, which provides us with opportunities for further evolutionary studies."
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- Of mice and (Viking?) men: phylogeography of British and Irish house mice involved scientists at York, and the universities of London, Aberdeen, Ondokuz Mayis (Turkey), Rome, British Columbia and Stellenbosch (South Africa), as well as the National Museums of Scotland.
- The diverse origins of New Zealand house mice involved scientists at the universities of York, Ondokuz Mayis and Waikato (New Zealand), and Massey University (New Zealand), Flinders University (Australia) and the South Australian Museum.
- Both papers are available at https://press.royalsociety.org
- The University of York’s Department of Biology is one of the leading centres for biological teaching and research in the UK. The Department both teaches degree courses and undertakes research across the whole spectrum of modern Biology, from molecular genetics and biochemistry to ecology.