The researchers found, however, that the average coalescence time for the y-chromosome was 500 years, while that for the mitochondrial genome was around 5,000 years.

然而，研究人员发现，y染色体的平均溯祖时间为500年，而线粒体基因组的平均溯祖时间约为5000年。

Dr Cox and his colleagues were therefore able to make a statistical comparison of Indonesian and Malagasy mitochondrial genomes knowing that any changes which had occurred since they separated would be the result of rare mutations.

Cox博士和他的同事们因此能进行印尼人和马达加斯加人线粒体基因组的数据比对，从而推断出原本相同的线粒体DNA天各一方后发生的任何遗传变化都是源于一些罕见的基因突变。

During their analysis, Dr Fu's team identified mitochondrial DNA (which is often easier to retrieve than regular nuclear DNA) from a goat whose milk went into the cheeses, before comparing it with 185 previously sequenced goat mitochondrial genomes.

在分析过程中， 傅博士的团队从一只产奶用于奶酪的山羊身上鉴定了线粒体 DNA（通常比常规核 DNA 更容易提取），然后将其与 185 个之前测序的山羊线粒体基因组进行了比较。