Fifty thousand years of Arctic vegetation and megafaunal diet

@article{Willerslev2014FiftyTY,
  title={Fifty thousand years of Arctic vegetation and megafaunal diet},
  author={Eske Willerslev and John Davison and Mari Moora and Martin Zobel and Eric Coissac and Mary E. Edwards and Eline D. Lorenzen and Mette Vesterg{\aa}rd and Galina Gussarova and James Haile and Joseph M. Craine and Ludovic Gielly and Sanne Boessenkool and Laura S. Epp and Peter B. Pearman and Rachid Cheddadi and David F. Murray and Kari Anne Br{\aa}then and Nigel Gilles Yoccoz and Heather A. Binney and Corinne Cruaud and Patrick Wincker and Tomasz Goslar and Inger Greve Alsos and Eva Bellemain and Anne Krag Brysting and Reidar Elven and J{\o}rn Henrik S{\o}nsteb{\o} and Julian B. Murton and Andrei V. Sher and Morten Rasmussen and Regin R{\o}nn and Tobias Mourier and Alan Cooper and Jeremy J. Austin and Per M{\"o}ller and Duane G. Froese and Grant Zazula and François Pompanon and Delphine Rioux and Vincent Niderkorn and Alexei N. Tikhonov and Grigoriy N. Savvinov and Richard G. Roberts and Ross D.E. Macphee and M. Thomas P. Gilbert and Kurt H. Kj{\ae}r and Ludovic Orlando and Christian Brochmann and Pierre Taberlet},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2014},
  volume={506},
  pages={47-51}
}
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 also explore nematode diversity as a proxy for modelling vegetation cover and soil quality, and diets of herbivorous megafaunal mammals, many of which… Expand
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