High Arctic environments are particularly sensitive to climate changes, but retrieval of paleoecological data is challenging due to low productivity and biomass. At the same time, Arctic soils and sediments have proven exceptional for long-term DNA preservation due to their constantly low temperatures. Lake sediments contain DNA paleorecords of the surrounding ecosystems and can be used to retrieve a variety of organismal groups from a single sample. In this study, we analyzed vascular plant, bryophyte, algal (in particular diatom) and copepod DNA retrieved from a sediment core spanning the Holocene, taken from Bliss Lake on the northernmost coast of Greenland. A previous multi-proxy study including microscopic diatom analyses showed that this lake experienced changes between marine and lacustrine conditions. We inferred the same environmental changes from algal DNA preserved in the sediment core. Our DNA record was stratigraphically coherent, with no indication of leaching between layers, and our cross-taxon comparisons were in accordance with previously inferred local ecosystem changes. Authentic ancient plant DNA was retrieved from nearly all layers, both from the marine and the limnic phases, and distinct temporal changes in plant presence were recovered. The plant DNA was mostly in agreement with expected vegetation history, but very early occurrences of vascular plants, including the woody Empetrum nigrum, document terrestrial vegetation very shortly after glacial retreat. Our study shows that multi-taxon metabarcoding of sedimentary ancient DNA from lake cores is a valuable tool both for terrestrial and aquatic paleoecology, even in low-productivity ecosystems such as the High Arctic.
Bliss_bryo_arcticborealbryo.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers bryo_P6F_1* & bryo_P6R as detailed in the associated publication. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a compilation of quality-checked and curated reference libraries for arctic and boreal species constructed at the Natural History Museum in Oslo (arctic vascular plants: Sønstebø et al. 2010; boreal vascular plants: Willerslev et al. 2014; bryophytes: Soininen et al. 2015).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_bryo_embl113.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers bryo_P6F_1* & bryo_P6R as detailed in the associated publication. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a reference library formatted from the EMBL Nucleotide Database standard release 113 by extracting sequences of the targeted
region using ecoPCR (Ficetola et al. 2010).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_vp1_arcticborealbryo.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers trnL_g and trnL_h as detailed in the associated publication. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. These sequences were recovered in the first round of amplification and sequencing of vascular plant DNA, as detailed in the associated publication (vascular plant dataset 1, "vp1"). Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a compilation of quality-checked and curated reference libraries for arctic and boreal species constructed at the Natural History Museum in Oslo (arctic vascular plants: Sønstebø et al. 2010; boreal vascular plants: Willerslev et al. 2014; bryophytes: Soininen et al. 2015).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_vp1_embl113.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers trnL_g and trnL_h preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. These sequences were recovered in the first round of amplification and sequencing of vascular plant DNA, as detailed in the associated publication (vascular plant dataset 1, "vp1"). Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a reference library formatted from the EMBL Nucleotide Database standard release 113 by extracting sequences of the targeted region using ecoPCR (Ficetola et al. 2010).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_vp2_arcticborealbryo.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers trnL_g and trnL_h as detailed in the associated publication. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. These sequences were recovered in the second round of amplification and sequencing of vascular plant DNA, as detailed in the associated publication (vascular plant dataset 2, "vp2"). Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a compilation of quality-checked and curated reference libraries for arctic and boreal species constructed at the Natural History Museum in Oslo (arctic vascular plants: Sønstebø et al. 2010; boreal vascular plants: Willerslev et al. 2014; bryophytes: Soininen et al. 2015).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_vp2_embl113.tag
The unique P6 loop trnL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers trnL_g and trnL_h preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. These sequences were recovered in the second round of amplification and sequencing of vascular plant DNA, as detailed in the associated publication (vascular plant dataset 2, "vp2"). Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a reference library formatted from the EMBL Nucleotide Database standard release 113 by extracting sequences of the targeted region using ecoPCR (Ficetola et al. 2010).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_diat_embl113.tag
The unique rbcL sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers rbcL_705f & rbcl_808r as detailed in the associated publication. The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland. Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a reference library formatted from the EMBL Nucleotide Database standard release 113 by extracting sequences of the targeted region using ecoPCR (Ficetola et al. 2010).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
Bliss_cop_embl113.tag
The unique sequences produced by amplification of DNA with the primers CopF2 & CopR1 as detailed in the associated publication.
The data was recovered from DNA preserved in a sediment core spanning the Holocene from Bliss Lake, Peary Land, North Greenland.
Taxonomic identification of sequences was inferred using a reference library formatted from the EMBL Nucleotide Database standard release 113 by extracting sequences of the targeted
region using ecoPCR (Ficetola et al. 2010).
Further details can be found in the ReadMe file.
