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The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic, mainly because material culture studies provide limited insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings, household composition and social structure can be studied through these human remains. Here, we describe genetic relatedness among co-burials associated with domestic buildings in Neolithic Anatolia using 59 ancient genomes, including 22 new genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük. We infer pedigree relationships by simultaneously analyzing multiple types of information, including autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating. In two early Neolithic villages dating to the 9th and 8th millennia BCE, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, we discover that siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequent within domestic structures, which provides the first direct indication of close genetic relationships among co-burials. In contrast, in the 7th millennium BCE sites of Çatalhöyük and Barcın, where we study subadults interred within and around houses, we find close genetic relatives to be rare. Hence, genetic relatedness may not have played a major role in the choice of burial location at these latter two sites, at least for subadults. This supports the hypothesis that in Çatalhöyük, and possibly in some other Neolithic communities, domestic structures may have served as burial location for social units incorporating biologically unrelated individuals. Our results underscore the diversity of kin structures in Neolithic communities during this important phase of sociocultural development.

Under unfavorable environmental conditions Caenorhabditis elegans larvae enter a dauer stage which is a specialized non-feeding larval stage. In the dauer stage, worms display astonishingly low metabolism, which allows them to adapt themselves to environmental stress and to dwell without food for several months. Dauer larvae can enter into the reproductive larval stage, when environmental conditions become favorable. In this study, the metabolic transition of dauers into the reproductive larval stage is analyzed in detail: a. During the exit of dauers, several metabolic traits were examined. Primarily, dauer larva initiates the metabolic transition by activating feeding, which is followed by upregulated oxygen consumption and mitochondrial remodeling, as well as enhanced protein synthesis. b. To better understand the metabolic transition, inhibitors of the dauer exit were introduced. Lithium ions were shown to inhibit the transition of dauers to reproductive larvae and prevent the upregulation of metabolic activities required for this process. c. In liquid culture, the transition from the dauer to the reproductive larva is also inhibited, presumably because of the hypoxic character of the liquid culture. Thus, hypoxia has a negative effect on the metabolic transition. d. In the course of our investigation we discovered that the dauer larva is not a closed system but indeed, it can dwell on the externally available ethanol as a carbon source by incorporating it into the energy metabolism. This allows dauers to survive for longer periods in the absence of bacteria, the preferred food of worms. These findings clarify the nature of dauers, how they utilize distinct pathways during the metabolic transition and how they take advantage of the externally available carbon source. These results may in the future enable us to elucidate the complex pathways of metabolism, as well as the ways in which it can be regulated.

Binlerce yıl boyunca, birçok farklı kültürün katkılarıyla gelişen, Anadolu'nun tarımsal biyoçeşitliliği; iklim değişikliği, nüfus artışı, küreselleşme ve tarım politikalarının bir sonucu olarak kaybolmaktadır. Halbuki, Anadolu'nun çoğu yerinde, hiçbir sulama, suni gübre ve zirai ilaç gerektirmeyen, yerel hastalık ve zararlılara dayanıklı meyve çeşitleri mevcuttur. Ne yazık ki, bu meyve çeşitlerinin çoğu günümüzde tarım politikalarının yanı sıra artan arsa fiyatları, pazarlama sorunları ve hızlı kentleşmenin tehdidi altındadır. Bu yerel meyve çeşitleri, iklim değişikliği karşısında gıda güvencemizi sağlamanın yanı sıra farklı tatları ve geleneksel kullanımları ile Türkiye'nin kültürel mirasının önemli bir parçasını oluşturmaktadır. 2007 yılından beri `Muğla'nın Yerel Meyve Çeşitleri: Kültürel Miras, Veritabanı ve Koruma Projesi?nin bir parçası olarak, Datça'da 96 yerel badem (Prunus dulcis) çeşidi kaydedilmiştir. Bu yerel çeşitlerin moleküler karakterizasyonu ve genetik çeşitliliğinin belirlenmesi bu tezin konusudur. DNA Mikrosatellit belirteçleri (SSR) kullanılarak, yerel badem çeşitlerinin DNA parmak izleri belirlenmiş ve bu çeşitlerin filogenetik akrabalığını göstern bir dendrogram oluşturulmuştur. Elde edilen moleküler veriler 82 özgün yerel badem çeşidini ortaya çıkartmıştır. DNA parmak izleri bu çeşitlerin tescili için kullanılabilir. Ayrıca bu moleküler veriler, yeni ve daha iyi çeşitlerin geliştirilmesi için tarımsal hibridizasyon çalışmalarında yararlı olabilir. Anatolia?s agricultural biodiversity, which has evolved with the contributions of many different cultures over thousands of years, is today being rapidly eroded as a result of climate change, population growth, globalization and agricultural policies. On the other hand, in every part of Anatolia, there are fruit varieties that are adapted to local soil and climate conditions, resistant to local pests and diseases, and require no irrigation, artificial fertilizer or pesticides. Unfortunately, most of these fruit varieties are today threatened by urbanization, soaring land prices and marketing problems in addition to agricultural policies. These fruit varieties are important genetic resources essential for the food security in the face of climate change and with their diverse flavors and traditional uses they are a significant part of Turkey?s cultural heritage. Since 2007, as a part of the `FRUIT LANDRACES OF MUĞLA: CULTURAL HERITAGE, DATABASE AND CONSERVATION PROJECT?, 96 almond landraces (Prunus dulcis) has been recorded in Datça. Molecular characterization and the genetic diversity of these almonds is the subject of this thesis. Using microsatellite (SSR) markers, molecular data were gathered in the form of DNA fingerprints and phylogenetic relatedness of these varieties was constructed on a dendrogram. From this data 82 unique almond varieties were identified. DNA fingerprints could allow the registration of these unique varieties as Datça?s landraces. Moreover, this data can be used for the selection of proper varieties for agricultural hybridization studies for the development of new and better cultivars. 113

Sheep were among the first domesticated animals, but their demographic history is little understood. Here we analyzed nuclear polymorphism and mitochondrial data (mtDNA) from ancient central and west Anatolian sheep dating from Epipaleolithic to late Neolithic, comparatively with modern-day breeds and central Asian Neolithic/Bronze Age sheep (OBI). Analyzing ancient nuclear data, we found that Anatolian Neolithic sheep (ANS) are genetically closest to present-day European breeds relative to Asian breeds, a conclusion supported by mtDNA haplogroup frequencies. In contrast, OBI showed higher genetic affinity to present-day Asian breeds. These results suggest that the east-west genetic structure observed in present-day breeds had already emerged by 6000 BCE, hinting at multiple sheep domestication episodes or early wild introgression in southwest Asia. Furthermore, we found that ANS are genetically distinct from all modern breeds. Our results suggest that European and Anatolian domestic sheep gene pools have been strongly remolded since the Neolithic., Yurtman, Özer, Yüncü et al. provide an ancient DNA data set to demonstrate the impact of human activity on the demographic history of domestic sheep. The authors demonstrate that there may have been multiple domestication events with notable changes to the gene pool of European and Anatolian sheep since the Neolithic.