Plant DNA metabarcoding record from a sediment core from Lake Naleng, southeastern Tibetan Plateau

Here, we provide the raw plant DNA metabarcoding data archived in Lake
Naleng sediment core spanning the late-glacial to the present (17,700 to 0
cal yr BP). Lake Naleng (31.10° N, 99.7°5 E, 4200 above sea level) is
situated in a glacially-formed basin on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau.
It is an alpine freshwater lake with a maximum water depth of 36.7 m, an
open surface area of 1.7 km2,  a specific conductivity of 0.045
mS/cm, a Secchi depth of 2.9 m, a pH of 8.1, a dissolved oxygen content of
6.9 mg/L (measured 19.09.2003), and a catchment area of 128 km2. The
catchment is used for seasonal grazing by yaks and sheep. The
lake is located at the upper treeline with main vegetation of alpine
meadow. The detailed geographic, biogeochemical and vegetation
information are described in Kramer et al., 2010a, b, c (doi:
10.1007/s00334-009-0219-5, 10.1016/j.yqres.2009.12.003, and
10.1016/j.palaeo.2009.12.001) and Opitz et al., 2015 (doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.03.011). The lake sediment
cores (17.81 m) was recovered from water depth of 32 m using an UWITEC
(Niederreiter 60) piston corer system on the frozen lake surface in
February 2004 (Kramer et al., 2010a).  Due to lack of
macrofossil remains, ten bulk organic carbon samples were
selected for AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon
dating at the Leibniz Laboratory, Kiel. The age-depth model
was built after subtracting the lake reservoir effect
of 1500 cal yr BP. The original 14C dating and
chronology is given by Kramer et al., 2010a, b, c. In this
project, we inferred the plant richness based on DNA data
and simulated glacial dynamics and habitat area within lake
catchment. We synthesized these data with published palaeoenvironmental
data  (temperature, soil development, and treeline location) to
find the direct factor of plant richness variations over the past
~18,000 years. According to the inferred relationship, we predicted the
plant richness change in the next 250 years (until 2300 C.E.).