< Back to main page

EcoGen - Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach

Header image Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach

Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach

Motivations

Will species and ecosystems be able to resist both direct human impact and climate changes? We are concerned about this especially for cold alpine and arctic regions where the effect of changing climate is expected to be severe. By increasing our understanding of what has driven past ecosystem changes, we may be more able to foresee how current and future changes may effect the species and ecosystems. 

How are we doing this?

We will take advantage of recently developed genetic methods and even further develop them to analyse lake sediments as they represents archives of past biodiversity. We will do DNA analyses of 20 lakes in northern Norway and 20 lakes in the Alps to find out how the diversity of animal and plants has changed over time. As these two regions have experienced similar changes in climate, whereas the impact of humans has been much higher in the Alps, we will be able to disentangling the effects of past human land-use (hunting, husbandry, burning, agriculture), climate change, and biota on species and ecosystem changes. 

What are we hoping for? 

We hope to answer questions central to our understanding of our biological resources, such as the level of persistence of species and resilience of ecosystems to environmental drivers, the extinction risk of species, and the capacity of mountain landscape to buffer against these changes. By combining our knowledge gained from the past with data on current climate, land use and ecosystem characteristics, we will make predictions of future changes and provide key knowledge for management and conservation priorities.

ecogen.no

Start: September 01. 2016
End: August 31. 2021
Unit: The Arctic University Museum of Norway and Academy of Fine Arts

Project categories: Basic Research
Academic disciplines: Vegetation history
Keywords: DNA




Funding:

UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Research Council of Norway (RCN)


Participants:

Inger Greve Alsos
Antony Gavin Brown
Youri Lammers
Dilli Prasad Rijal
Kelsey Lorberau
Sandra Garces Pastor
Peter Heintzman
Kari Anne Braathen
Mary Elizabeth Edwards
Matthias Forwick
Oliver Heiri
Willy Tinner
Frederic Boyer
Tomasz Goslar
Galina Gussarova
Niklaus E Zimmermann
Loic Pellisier
Kevin Walsh
N Alvarez
Fransesco Gentil Ficetola
Eric Coissac
Antony G Brown
Christian Brochmann
Jens-Christian Svenning
Hans Peter Blankholm
Torbjørn Alm
Susanna Dorothee Ehrich
Rolf Anker Ims
Nigel Gilles Yoccoz


Results:

  1. The arrival of bison in North America (Academic lecture)
  2. Determining the timing of extinction for a late-surviving island mammoth population using sedimentary ancient DNA (Academic lecture)
  3. Disser rørene forteller om planter og dyr fra siste istid (Interview)
  4. Store svar i lite rør (Interview)
  5. Sedimentenes hemmeligheter (Interview)
  6. Vokste det gran og furu på Andøya under siste istid? (Popular scientific lecture)
  7. ECOGENE - Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach (Academic lecture)
  8. Environmental DNA taphonomy: How well is the flora represented in metabarcoding data? (Academic lecture)
  9. ECOGENE - Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach (Academic lecture)
  10. Sedimentary ancient DNA metabarcoding as a tool for reconstructing Quaternary vegetation histories (Academic lecture)
  11. Komagdalen (2016) The first results from the ECOGEN project (Academic lecture)
  12. Polar Ural Mountains: A rich flora for the past 25,000 years (Academic lecture)
  13. Reconstructing the flora and fauna of the last Ice Age: A Mammoth task (Academic lecture)
  14. Sedimentary ancient DNA from lake Bolshoye Schuchye (Academic lecture)
  15. Sedimentary ancient DNA from Lake Bolshoye Schuchye (Academic lecture)
  16. Ancient DNA of Northwest Europe (Academic lecture)
  17. Ancient plant DNA in lake sediments (Academic literature review)
  18. DNA - Lab på desembernatt (Other presentation)
  19. Plant DNA metabarcoding of lake sediments: How does it represent the contemporary vegetation (Academic article)
  20. Fossilt DNA skal gi klimasvar (Interview)
  21. Distriktsnyheter Nordnytt (Interview)
  22. Ancient vertebrate DNA in the environment (Lecture)
  23. Optimization of efficient ancient DNA extraction from lake sediment (Academic lecture)
  24. Metabarcoding of modern soil DNA gives a highly local vegetation signal in Svalbard tundra (Academic article)
  25. A 25,000-yr combined DNA and pollen record from the Polar Urals: resilience of the arctic-alpine flora under climate change (Academic lecture)
  26. Ancient DNA from northern Eurasian lakes reveals community dynamics of vascular plants over the past 25,000 years (Poster)
  27. Holocene floristic diversity and richness in northeast Norway revealed by sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and pollen (Academic article)
  28. Clitellate worms (Annelida) in late-glacial and Holocene sedimentary DNA records from the Polar Urals and northern Norway (Academic article)
  29. A 24,000 years long, high-resolution lake record from the Polar Ural Mountains, Arctic Russia (Academic lecture)
  30. Fossilt DNA avslører fortiden (Popular scientific lecture)
  31. ECOGEN - Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach (Lecture)
  32. ECOGEN and other ongoing project at Tromsø Museum aDNA lab (Academic lecture)
  33. Node Report – Norway (Academic lecture)
  34. An aDNA record of 25,000 years of Arctic plant community dynamics (Academic lecture)
  35. Palaeoecological reconstruction of high-mountain peat bog communities based on classical and molecular methods: a comparative synthesis. (Academic lecture)
  36. ECOGENE - Ecosystem change and species persistence over time: a genome-based approach (Academic lecture)
  37. Vegetation Ecology Using Ancient Lake Sedimentary DNA (Academic lecture)
  38. Sedimentary ancient DNA (Lecture)
  39. Don't judge a lake by its (surrounding vegetation) cover: what influences efficient DNA extraction from sediments? (Academic lecture)
  40. Ancient DNA reveals vegetation history near the archeological site in Varanger, northern Norway (Academic lecture)
  41. Ancient DNA reveal Holocene environmental change with and without human impact (Academic lecture)
  42. Optimization of efficient ancient DNA extraction from lake sediment (Poster)
  43. DNA - Lab på desembernatt (Other presentation)
  44. Tracking the past using the present: does sedimentary DNA capture the dominant vegetation growing around a lake? (Popular scientific lecture)
  45. Comparing sedimentary environmental DNA-based vegetation to current vegetation composition around lakes (Poster)
  46. Impact of climate and anthropogenic factors on vegetation history: an ancient DNA based vegetation reconstruction from Varanger, northern Norway (Academic lecture)
  47. Towards plant barcode 2.0 and its application in environmental and ancient DNA studies (Academic lecture)
  48. How ancient sediment DNA can improve our understanding of past vegetation and the impact of climate change (Academic lecture)
  49. Future ArcTic Ecosystems (FATE): drivers of diversity and future scenarios from ethno-ecology, contemporary ecology and ancient DNA (Poster)
  50. The importance of the reference library: discovery of unexpected species in ancient sedimentary DNA (Academic lecture)
  51. Holocene vegetation changes in the Alps, as inferred from lake sedimentary ancient DNA (Academic lecture)
  52. Hidden species richness detected in ancient DNA: algae and worms recorded in Pleistocene and Holocene lake sediments (Academic lecture)
  53. Arctic-alpine plants survived past forest expansion: a 24,000-year ancient DNA record from the Polar Urals (Academic lecture)
  54. Hidden species richness detected in ancient DNA: algae and worms recorded in Pleistocene and Holocene lake sediments (Academic lecture)
  55. Persistent arctic vegetation during periods of rapid climate change - 24,000 years of plant community dynamics in the Polar Urals (Academic lecture)
  56. The importance of the reference library: discovery of unexpected species in ancient sedimentary DNA (Academic lecture)