• High resolution ancient sedimentary DNA shows that alpine plant diversity is associated with human land use and climate change 

      Garces Pastor, Sandra; Alsos, Inger Greve; Coissac, Eric; Lavergne, Sébastien; Schwörer, Christoph; Theurillat, Jean-Paul; Heintzman, Peter D.; Wangensteen, Owen S.; Tinner, Willy; Rey, Fabian; Heer, Martina; Rutzer, Astrid; Walsh, Kevin; Lammers, Youri; Brown, Antony G.; Goslar, Tomasz; Rijal, Dilli P.; Karger, Dirk N.; Pellissier, Loïc; Heiri, Oliver (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-11-04)
      The European Alps are highly rich in species, but their future may be threatened by ongoing changes in human land use and climate. Here, we reconstructed vegetation, temperature, human impact and livestock over the past ~12,000 years from Lake Sulsseewli, based on sedimentary ancient plant and mammal DNA, pollen, spores, chironomids, and microcharcoal. We assembled a highly-complete local DNA ...
    • Pollen, macrofossils and sedaDNA reveal climate and land use impacts on Holocene mountain vegetation of the Lepontine Alps, Italy 

      van Vugt, Lieveke; Garces Pastor, Sandra; Gobet, Erika; Brechbühl, Sarah; Knetge, Antonietta; Lammers, Youri; Stengele, Katja; Alsos, Inger Greve; Tinner, Willy; Schwörer, Christoph (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-10-10)
      Both climate change and anthropogenic disturbance affect vegetation composition, but it is difficult to separate these drivers of vegetation change from one another. A better understanding of past vegetation dynamics is necessary to disentangle the influence of different forcing factors and assess future vegetation change. Here we present the first multi-proxy palaeoecological study combining ...