The objective of the project is to reconstruct plant biodiversity and its trend archived in Alpine glacier ice by
pollen and eDNA (environmental DNA) during the last five decades by analyzing a 40 m ice core. For our study
we chose the Adamello glacier (Trentino - Südtirol, Lombardia) because of i) the good preservation conditions
for pollen and eDNA in ice, ii) the thickness of the ice cap (270m) and iii) the expected high time resolution. The
biodiversity estimates gained by pollen analysis and eDNA will be validated by historical biodiversity assessments
mainly based on vegetation maps, aerial photos and vegetation surveys in the catchment area of the Adamello
glacier for the last five decades. This historical reconstruction of biodiversity trends will be performed on a micro-,
meso- and macro-scale (5, 20-50 and 50-100 Km radius, respectively). The results will serve as a calibration data
set on biodiversity for future studies, such as the second step of the coring by the POLLiCE research consortium
(pollice.fmach.it). In fact, arrangements are currently been made to drill the complete ice cap and retrieve a 270
m thick core which has the potential to cover a time span of minimum 400 years up to several millennia. This
second stage will extend the time scale and enable the evaluation of dissimilarity/similarity of modern biodiversity
in relation to Late Holocene trends. Finally, we believe this case study has the potential to be applied in other
glaciated areas to evaluate biodiversity for large regions (e.g. central Asian mountain ranges, Tibet and Tian Shan
or the Andes)