Marc Robinson-RechaviInger Alsos, 2nd keynote of #Biology25: studying paleo-ecology to understand present ecology. Ancient environmental DNA allows to move from studying single taxa (biased towards a few which preserve well, e.g. pollen or bones) to studying whole ecosystems. Focus: lake sentiments which allow to trap ecosystem changes.
Metabarcoding allows to target organism groups, such as plants, while most of the non-targeted e-DNA is bacterial (SedaDNA = sediment ancient DNA). #Biology25
What drives alpine biodiversity? Sampling of lake sendiments over all the Alps 🇫🇷🇨🇠🇮🇹 🇦🇹 shows a strong increase in plant richness in the last 4000 years, with a peaks ≈3 kya and ≈2 kya, which correspond to arrival of domesticated animals. Temperature does not appear correlated with plant species richness. #Biology25
Huge turnover (in Alps) from wild to domesticated mammals over last 6 ky, especially in last 4 ky. The largest impact on plant diversity is cattle, by far (above other domestic mammals, wild mammals, temperature, rainfall). #Biology25
In different (cold) environments (Northern Scandinavia, Iceland, UK, Alps), , different interactions plants - herbivores, from strong top-down to strong bottom-up to almost no interaction.
Nice review and perspectives: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2023.0017 #Biology25
Nice review and perspectives: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2023.0017 #Biology25