Data from: Fifty thousand years of arctic vegetation and megafaunal diet

• Main Authors: Willerslev, Eske, Davison, John, Moora, Mari, Zobel, Martin, Coissac, Eric, Edwards, Mary E., Lorenzen, Eline D., Vestergård, Mette, Gussarova, Galina, Haile, James, Craine, Joseph, Bergmann, Gaddy, Gielly, Ludovic, Boessenkool, Sanne, Epp, Laura S., Pearman, Peter B., Cheddadi, Rachid, Murray, David, Bråthen, Karri Anne, Yoccoz, Nigel, Binney, Heather, Cruaud, Corinne, Wincker, Patrick, Goslar, Tomasz, Alsos, Inger Greve, Bellemain, Eva, Brysting, Anne Krag, Elven, Reidar, Sønstebø, Jørn Henrik, Murton, Julian, Sher, Andrei, Rasmussen, Morten, Rønn, Regin, Mourier, Tobias, Cooper, Alan, Austin, Jeremy, Möller, Per, Froese, Duane, Zazula, Grant, Pompanon, François, Rioux, Delphine, Niderkorn, Vincent, Tikhonov, Alexei, Savvinov, Grigoriy, Roberts, Richard G., MacPhee, Ross D. E., Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Kjær, Kurt H., Orlando, Ludovic, Brochmann, Christian, Taberlet, Pierre
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2014
• Subjects: megafauna extinction; Quaternary; Ovis aries; Ancient environmental DNA; Equus lambei; Bison sp; Mammuthus primigenius; Coelodonta antiquitatis; permafrost; Tundra
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ph8s5

Although it is generally agreed that the arctic flora is among the youngest and least diverse on Earth, the processes that shaped it are poorly understood. Here we present 50 thousand years (kyr) of arctic vegetation history, derived from the first large-scale ancient DNA metabarcoding study of circumpolar plant diversity. For this interval we additionally explore nematode diversity as a proxy for modelling vegetation cover and soil quality, and diets of herbivorous megafaunal mammals, many of which became extinct around 10 kyr BP (before present). For much of the period investigated, arctic vegetation consisted of dry steppe tundra dominated by forbs (non-graminoid herbaceous vascular plants). During the Last Glacial Maximum (25–15 kyr BP), diversity declined markedly, although forbs remained dominant. Much changed after 10 kyr BP, with the appearance of moist tundra dominated by woody plants and graminoids. Our analyses indicate that both graminoids and forbs would have featured in megafaunal diets. As such our findings question the predominance of a late Quaternary graminoid-dominated arctic "mammoth steppe". Sheep diet data Fasta file containing the sequence data ovis_sequence_data.fasta Megafauna diet data Fasta file containing sequence data. megafauna_diet_sequence_data.fasta Nematoda sequence data Fasta file containing the raw sequence data. nematoda_sequence_data.fasta Nematoda filtered sequence data Fasta file containing the filtered sequence data. nematoda_filtered_sequence_data.fasta Megafauna sequence data Fasta file containing the sequence data. megafauna_sequence_data.fasta Megafauna filtered data Tabulated file containing the filtered data. megafauna_filtered_data.txt Sheep diet filtered data Tabulated file containing filtered data of sheep diet. ovis_filtered_data.txt Full permafrost dataset csv file containing the full permafrost dataset. permafrost.fulldata.csv Reference database Arctic (gh) Fasta file of the Arctic reference database (P6 loop of the trnL) references.arctic-gh.fasta Reference ...