DOI: 10.5061/dryad.26h7b
title: Data from: Lake sediment multi-taxon DNA from North Greenland records early post-glacial appearance of vascular plants and accurately tracks environmental changes

description: 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.
description: Bliss_bryo_arcticborealbryo.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.tagThe 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.