<oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd">
  <dc:rights>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</dc:rights>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Animals</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Retroelements Genetics</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Gene Transfer, Horizontal</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Phylogeny</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Evolution, Molecular</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Drosophila Genetics</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Genome, Insect</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Drosophila Melanogaster Genetics</dc:subject>
  <dc:subject xml:lang="eng">Introduced Species</dc:subject>
  <dc:description xml:lang="eng">Horizontal transfer of genetic material in eukaryotes has rarely been documented over short evolutionary timescales. Here, we show that two retrotransposons, Shellder and Spoink, invaded the genomes of multiple species of the melanogaster subgroup within the last 50 years. Through horizontal transfer, Spoink spread in D. melanogaster during the 1980s, while both Shellder and Spoink invaded D. simulans in the 1990s. Possibly following hybridization, D. simulans infected the island endemic species D. mauritiana (Mauritius) and D. sechellia (Seychelles) with both TEs after 1995. In the same approximate time-frame, Shellder also invaded D. teissieri, a species confined to sub-Saharan Africa. We find that the donors of Shellder and Spoink are likely American Drosophila species from the willistoni, cardini, and repleta groups. Thus, the described cascade of TE invasions could only become feasible after D. melanogaster and D. simulans extended their distributions into the Americas 200 years ago, likely aided by human activity. Our work reveals that cascades of TE invasions, likely initiated by human-mediated range expansions, could have an impact on the genomic and phenotypic evolution of geographically dispersed species. Within a few decades, TEs could invade many species, including island endemics, with distributions very distant from the donor of the TE.</dc:description>
  <dc:type xml:lang="deu">Text</dc:type>
  <dc:type xml:lang="deu">Wissenschaftlicher Artikel</dc:type>
  <dc:format>application/pdf</dc:format>
  <dc:source xml:lang="eng">Nature Communications</dc:source>
  <dc:title xml:lang="eng">Double trouble: two retrotransposons triggered a cascade of invasions in Drosophila species within the last 50 years</dc:title>
  <dc:date>2025</dc:date>
  <dc:publisher>Nature Portfolio</dc:publisher>
  <dc:type xml:lang="ita">Testo</dc:type>
  <dc:type xml:lang="ita">Articolo di rivista</dc:type>
  <dc:rights xml:lang="eng">© 2025. The Author(s)</dc:rights>
  <dc:rights xml:lang="eng">open access</dc:rights>
  <dc:language>eng</dc:language>
  <dc:creator>Almorò Scarpa</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Riccardo Pianezza</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Hannah R. Gellert</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Anna Haider</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Bernard Y. Kim</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Eric C. Lai</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Robert Kofler</dc:creator>
  <dc:creator>Sarah Signor</dc:creator>
  <dc:identifier>doi:10.1038/s41467-024-55779-6</dc:identifier>
  <dc:type xml:lang="eng">Text</dc:type>
  <dc:type xml:lang="eng">journal article</dc:type>
  <dc:identifier>https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:3968</dc:identifier>
</oai_dc:dc>