Late Quaternary dynamics of Arctic biota from ancient environmental genomics. ...

• Main Authors: Wang, Yucheng, Pedersen, Mikkel Winther, Alsos, Inger Greve, De Sanctis, Bianca, Racimo, Fernando, Prohaska, Ana, Coissac, Eric, Owens, Hannah Lois, Merkel, Marie Kristine Føreid, Fernandez-Guerra, Antonio, Rouillard, Alexandra, Lammers, Youri, Alberti, Adriana, Denoeud, France, Money, Daniel, Ruter, Anthony H, McColl, Hugh, Larsen, Nicolaj Krog, Cherezova, Anna A, Edwards, Mary E, Fedorov, Grigory B, Haile, James, Orlando, Ludovic, Vinner, Lasse, Korneliussen, Thorfinn Sand, Beilman, David W, Bjørk, Anders A, Cao, Jialu, Dockter, Christoph, Esdale, Julie, Gusarova, Galina, Kjeldsen, Kristian K, Mangerud, Jan, Rasic, Jeffrey T, Skadhauge, Birgitte, Svendsen, John Inge, Tikhonov, Alexei, Wincker, Patrick, Xing, Yingchun, Zhang, Yubin, Froese, Duane G, Rahbek, Carsten, Bravo, David Nogues, Holden, Philip B, Edwards, Neil R, Durbin, Richard, Meltzer, David J, Kjær, Kurt H, Möller, Per, Willerslev, Eske
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2021
• Subjects: Animals; Arctic Regions; Biota; Climate Change; DNA, Ancient; DNA, Environmental; Databases, Genetic; Datasets as Topic; Extinction, Biological; Geologic Sediments; Grassland; Greenland; Haplotypes; Herbivory; History, Ancient; Humans; Lakes; Mammoths; Metagenomics; Mitochondria; Perissodactyla; Permafrost; Phylogeny; Plants; Population Dynamics; Rain; Siberia; Spatio-Temporal Analysis; Wetlands; Arctic; Austin; Climate change; permafrost; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.91237; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/343814

Acknowledgements: Acknowledgements: We thank D. H. Mann for his detailed and constructive comments; and T. Ager, J. Austin, T. B. Brand, A. Cooper, S. Funder, M. T. P. Gilbert, T. Jørgensen, N. J. Korsgaard, S. Liu, M. Meldgaard, P. V. S. Olsen, M. L. Siggaard-Andersen, J. Stenderup, S. A. Woodroffe and staff at the GeoGenetics Sequencing Core and National Park Service-Western Arctic National Parklands for help and support. E.W. and D.J.M. thank the staff at St. John’s College, Cambridge, for providing a stimulating environment for scientific discussion of the project. E.W. thanks Illumina for collaboration. The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (CF18-0024), the Lundbeck Foundation (R302-2018-2155), the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF18SA0035006), the Wellcome Trust (UNS69906) and GRF EXC CRS Chair (44113220)—Cluster of Excellence. The PhyloNorway plant genome database is part of the Norwegian Barcode of Life Network (https://www.norbol.org) funded by the Research ... : During the last glacial-interglacial cycle, Arctic biotas experienced substantial climatic changes, yet the nature, extent and rate of their responses are not fully understood1-8. Here we report a large-scale environmental DNA metagenomic study of ancient plant and mammal communities, analysing 535 permafrost and lake sediment samples from across the Arctic spanning the past 50,000 years. Furthermore, we present 1,541 contemporary plant genome assemblies that were generated as reference sequences. Our study provides several insights into the long-term dynamics of the Arctic biota at the circumpolar and regional scales. Our key findings include: (1) a relatively homogeneous steppe-tundra flora dominated the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum, followed by regional divergence of vegetation during the Holocene epoch; (2) certain grazing animals consistently co-occurred in space and time; (3) humans appear to have been a minor factor in driving animal distributions; (4) higher effective precipitation, as well ...