Department of Biology and Botanical Garden involved in UC SANTA CRUZ publication
7 January 2025, by Website Team Biologie

Photo: UC SANTA CRUZ
Thea Lautenschläger (Botanical Garden), Paulina Meller and Manfred Finckh (both Department of Biology) are co-authors of a publication by UC Santa Cruz in Nature Communications.
A team of researchers led by UC Santa Cruz recently published a map within a paper in Nature Communications that shows for the first time the unique ‘geological fingerprints’ of most of the African continent. It is the first bioavailable strontium isotope map showing the predicted strontium isotope ratios south of the Sahara.
The map will help archaeologists, conservation scientists, and forensics experts match artifacts and plant, animal, and human remains found at locations around the world back to their most likely region of origin within Africa, offering new insights on issues ranging from the history of the transatlantic slave trade to modern wildlife trafficking and human migration patterns.
Strontium is an element present in bedrock and soil that comes in several different chemical forms, called isotopes. The ratio of these isotopes to one another indicates the age and chemical composition of the bedrock in a given region of the planet. Living organisms incorporate strontium from the environment into their tissues in ratios that reflect the local conditions of the place where they developed. This means researchers can perform isotope analysis on a sample of unknown origin, then use the new isotope map to see which parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are most likely to have produced the specific ratios observed in the sample.
Original publication
Article, Open access, Published: 30 December 2024
Strontium isoscape of sub-Saharan Africa allows tracing origins of victims of the transatlantic slave trade
Xueye Wang, Gaëlle Bocksberger, Mimi Arandjelovic, Anthony Agbor, Samuel Angedakin, Floris Aubert, Emmanuel Ayuk Ayimisin, Emma Bailey, Donatienne Barubiyo, Mattia Bessone, René Bobe, Matthieu Bonnet, Renée Boucher, Gregory Brazzola, Simon Brewer, Kevin C. Lee, Susana Carvalho, Rebecca Chancellor, Chloe Cipoletta, Heather Cohen, Sandi R. Copeland, Katherine Corogenes, Ana Maria Costa, Charlotte Coupland, Bryan Curran, Darryl J. de Ruiter, Tobias Deschner, Paula Dieguez, Karsten Dierks, Emmanuel Dilambaka, Dervla Dowd, Andrew Dunn, Villard Ebot Egbe, Manfred Finckh, Barbara Fruth, Liza Gijanto, Yisa Ginath Yuh, Annemarie Goedmakers, Cameron Gokee, Rui Gomes Coelho, Alan H. Goodman, Anne-Céline Granjon, Vaughan Grimes, Cyril C. Grueter, Anne Haour, Daniela Hedwig, Veerle Hermans, R. Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar, Gottfried Hohmann, Inaoyom Imong, Kathryn J. Jeffery, Sorrel Jones, Jessica Junker, Parag Kadam, Mbangi Kambere, Mohamed Kambi, Ivonne Kienast, Kelly J. Knudson, Kevin E. Langergraber, Vincent Lapeyre, Juan Lapuente, Bradley Larson, Thea Lautenschläger, Petrus le Roux, Vera Leinert, Manuel Llana, Amanda Logan, Brynn Lowry, Tina Lüdecke, Giovanna Maretti, Sergio Marrocoli, Rumen Fernandez, Patricia J. McNeill, Amelia C. Meier, Paulina Meller, J. Cameron Monroe, David Morgan, Felix Mulindahabi, Mizuki Murai, Emily Neil, Sonia Nicholl, Protais Niyigaba, Emmanuelle Normand, Lucy Jayne Ormsby, Orume Diotoh, Liliana Pacheco, Alex Piel, Jodie Preece, Sebastien Regnaut, Francois G. Richard, Michael P. Richards, Aaron Rundus, Crickette Sanz, Volker Sommer, Matt Sponheimer, Teresa E. Steele, Fiona A. Stewart, Nikki Tagg, Luc Roscelin Tédonzong, Alexander Tickle, Lassané Toubga, Joost van Schijndel, Virginie Vergnes, Nadege Wangue Njomen, Erin G. Wessling, Jacob Willie, Roman M. Wittig, Kyle Yurkiw, Andrew M. Zipkin, Klaus Zuberbühler, Hjalmar S. Kühl, Christophe Boesch & Vicky M. Oelze
Nature Communications
volume 15, Article number: 10891 (2024)