A 2-million-year-old ecosystem in Greenland uncovered by environmental DNA

Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene epochs 3.6 to 0.8 million years ago1 had climates resembling those forecasted under future warming2. Palaeoclimatic records show strong polar amplification with mean annual temperatures of 11–19 °C above contemporary values3,4. The biological communities inhabiting the Arctic during this time remain poorly known because fossils are rare5. Here we report an ancient environmental DNA6 (eDNA) record describing the rich plant and animal assemblages of the Kap København Formation in North Greenland, dated to around two million years ago. The record shows an open boreal forest ecosystem with mixed vegetation of poplar, birch and thuja trees, as well as a variety of Arctic and boreal shrubs and herbs, many of which had not previously been detected at the site from macrofossil and pollen records. The DNA record confirms the presence of hare and mitochondrial DNA from animals including mastodons, reindeer, rodents and geese, all ancestral to their present-day and late Pleistocene relatives. The presence of marine species including horseshoe crab and green algae support a warmer climate than today. The reconstructed ecosystem has no modern analogue. The survival of such ancient eDNA probably relates to its binding to mineral surfaces. Our findings open new areas of genetic research, demonstrating that it is possible to track the ecology and evolution of biological communities from two million years ago using ancient eDNA

University Centre in Svalbard Current Work on Svalbard- flora.net and Red Listed Species PDF » Stephen Talbot, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Checklists of Arctic Lichens Anchorage and Mosses: Report on the Work of Belland and Kristinsson

Arctic Council's CAFF Working Group's Circumpolar Flora Group report

Prevention of microbial species introductions to the arctic: The efficacy of footwear disinfection measures on cruise ships

Source at https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.37.22088.Biosecurity measures are commonly used to prevent the introduction of non-native species to natural environments globally, yet the efficacy of practices is rarely tested under operational conditions. A voluntary biosecurity measure was trialled in the Norwegian high Arctic following concern that non-native species might be transferred to the region on the footwear of travellers. Passengers aboard an expedition cruise ship disinfected their footwear with the broad spectrum disinfectant Virkon S prior to and in-between landing at sites around the remote Svalbard archipelago. The authors evaluated the efficacy of simply stepping through a disinfectant foot bath, which is the most common practice of footwear disinfection aboard expedition cruise ships in the Arctic. This was compared to a more time consuming and little-used method involving drying disinfected footwear, as proposed by other studies. The two practices were evaluated by measuring microbial growth on paired footwear samples before and after disinfection under both conditions. Step-through disinfection did not substantially reduce microbial growth on the footwear. Allowing disinfected footwear to dry, however, reduced the microbial burden significantly to lower levels. Thus, the currently adopted procedures used aboard ships are ineffective at removing microbial burden and are only effective when footwear is given more time to dry than currently granted under operational conditions. These findings underscore results from empirical research performed elsewhere and suggest the need to better relay this information to practitioners. It is suggested that footwear should minimally be wiped dry after step-through disinfection as a reasonable compromise between biosecurity and practicability

Towards a Jōmon food database: construction, analysis and implications for Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands, Japan

One of the most entrenched binary oppositions in archaeology and anthropology has been the agriculturalist vs hunter-gatherer-fisher dichotomy fuelling a debate that this paper tackles from the bottom-up by seeking to reconstruct full past diets. The Japanese prehistoric Jōmon cultures survived without fully-developed agriculture for more than 10,000 years. Here we compile a comprehensive, holistic database of archaeobotanical and archaeozoological records from the two ends of the archipelago, the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido and the southernmost island-chain of Ryukyu. The results suggest Jōmon diets varied far more geographically than they did over time, and likely cultivated taxa were important in both regions. This provides the basis for examining how fisher-hunter-gatherer diets can fulfil nutritional requirements from varied environments and were resilient in the face of environmental change

Plant biodiversity assessment through soil eDNA reflects temporal and local diversity

1. Several studies have shown the potential of eDNA-based proxies for plant identification, but little is known about their spatial and temporal resolution. This limits its use for plant biodiversity assessments and monitoring of vegetation responses to environmental changes. Here we calibrate the temporal and spatial plant signals detected with soil eDNA surveys by comparing with a standard visual above-ground vegetation survey. 2. Our approach compares vegetation in an old-growth boreal forest in southern Norway, surveyed in 100 permanent 1-m2 plots seven times over a 30-year period, with a single soil eDNA metabarcoding-based survey from soil samples collected at the same 100 plots in the year of the last vegetation survey. 3. On average, 60% and 10% of the vascular plants and bryophytes recorded across all vegetation surveys were detected by soil eDNA. Taxa detected by soil eDNA were more representative for the local taxa pool than for the specific plot, and corresponded to those surveyed over the 30-year period although most closely matched the current taxa composition. Soil eDNA detected abundant taxa better than rare ones although both rare taxa and taxa unrecorded by the visual survey were detected. 4. Our study highlights the potential of soil eDNA assessments for monitoring of vegetation responses over broad spatial and temporal scales. The method's ability to detect abundant taxa makes it suitable for assessment of vegetation composition in a specific area and for broad-scale plant diversity assessments

Molecular dietary analyses of western capercaillies (Tetrao urogallus) reveal a diverse diet

Conservation strategies centered around species habitat protection rely on species’ dietary information. One species at the focal point of conservation efforts is the herbivorous grouse, the western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), which is an indicator species for forest biodiversity conservation. Non-molecular means used to study their diet are time-consuming and at low taxonomic resolution. This delays the implementation of conservation strategies including resource protection due to uncertainty about its diet. Thus, limited knowledge on diet is hampering conservation efforts. Here, we use non-invasive environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding on DNA extracted from faces to present the first large-scale molecular dietary analysis of capercaillies. Facal samples were collected from seven populations located in Norway (Finnmark, Troms, Trøndelag, Innlandet) and France (Vosges, Jura, Pyrenees) (n = 172). We detected 122 plant taxa belonging to 46 plant families of which 37.7% of the detected taxa could be identified at species level. The average dietary richness of each sample was 7 ± 5 SD taxa. The most frequently occurring plant groups with the highest relative read abundance (RRA) were trees and dwarf shrubs, in particular, Pinus and Vaccinium myrtillus, respectively. There was a difference in dietary composition (RRA) between samples collected from the different locations (adonis pseudo F5,86 = 11.01, r2 = 0.17, p = 0.001) and seasons (adonis pseudo F2,03 = 0.64, r2 = 0.01, p = 0.036). Dietary composition also differed between sexes at each location (adonis pseudo F1,47 = 2.77, r2 = 0.04, p = 0.024), although not significant for all data combined. In total, 35 taxa (36.8% of taxa recorded) were new capercaillie food items compared with existing knowledge from non-molecular means. The non-invasive molecular dietary analysis applied in this study provides new ecological information of capercaillies’ diet, improving our understanding of adequate habitat required for their conservation

Environmental DNA of aquatic macrophytes: The potential for reconstructing past and present vegetation and environments

1. Environmental DNA is increasingly being used to reconstruct past and present biodiversity including from freshwater ecosystems. Macrophytes are especially good environmental indicators, thus their environmental DNA palaeorecord might shed light on past postglacial environments. 2. Here, we first review and compare studies that use metagenomics, targeted capture, and various barcoding and metabarcoding markers, in order to explore how each of these methods can be used to capture aquatic vegetation diversity and change. We then investigate the extent to which such a record can be leveraged for reconstructing local environmental conditions, using a case study based on macrophyte ecological niches. 3. We find that, with state-of-the-art DNA barcode reference libraries, using metabarcoding to target the P6 loop region of the chloroplast trnL (UAA) intron is optimal to maximise taxonomic resolution and the diversity of past macrophyte communities. Shotgun sequencing also retrieves a high proportion of aquatic macrophyte diversity, but has the lowest taxonomic resolution, and targeted capture needs to be more widely applied before comparisons can be made. 4. From our case study, we infer past aquatic habitats from sedimentary ancient DNA records of macrophyte taxa. We reconstructed Holocene thermal range, continentality, water pH, trophic status, and light conditions in northern Fennoscandia. We show an overall stability since 9,000 years ago, even though individual lakes display different trends and variation in local climatic and physicochemical conditions. 5. Combined with the availability of near-exhaustive barcode and traits databases, metabarcoding data can support wider ecological reconstructions that are not limited to aquatic plant taxonomic inventories but can also be used to infer past changes in water conditions and their environmental drivers. Sedimentary DNA is also a powerful tool to measure present diversity, as well as to reconstruct past lacustrine and fluvial communities of aquatic macrophytes

Lateglacial and Early Holocene palaeoenvironmental change and human activity at Killerby Quarry, North Yorkshire, UK

The hunter-gatherers that entered the British peninsula after ice-retreat were exploiting a dynamic, rapidly changing environment. Records of vegetation change and human occupation during the Lateglacial to Early Holocene in northern Britain are more commonly found at upland and cave sites. However, recent research highlights many areas of the Swale–Ure Washlands that preserve extensive environmental sequences in low-lying ice-wastage basins, channels and depressions. The Lateglacial–Early Holocene environment of Killerby Quarry, North Yorkshire, is investigated here using a multi-proxy approach of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), pollen, sedimentological (geochemistry and portable optically stimulated luminescence), and rare and well-preserved archaeology (Lavvu structures and lithics). Results show that the wetland basins and kettleholes were small lakes or ponds in the Lateglacial surrounded by sedge-fen and birch woodland. A gradual (centennial scale) succession to reed-swamp and then marsh is seen by the Early Holocene. This environment formed the resource-scape for hunter-gatherer transitory settlement in both the Lateglacial (Late Upper Palaeolithic) and Holocene (Early Mesolithic), attracted by the rich communities of pond-related flora and fauna as well as easy strategic landscape access by way of the River Swale, an arterial route through the landscape connecting the North Sea Basin with the Pennine uplands via the palaeolakes around Killerby