Phylogenetic diversity and environment form assembly rules for Arctic diatom genera—a study on recent and ancient sedimentary DNA

Aim

This study investigates taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity in diatom genera to evaluate assembly rules for eukaryotic microbes across the Siberian treeline. We first analysed how phylogenetic distance relates to taxonomic richness and turnover. Second, we used relatedness indices to evaluate if environmental filtering or competition influences the assemblies in space and through time. Third, we used distance-based ordination to test which environmental variables shape diatom turnover.

Location

Yakutia and Taymyria, Russia: we sampled 78 surface sediments and a sediment core, extending to 7000 years before present, to capture the forest–tundra transition in space and time, respectively.

Taxon

Arctic freshwater diatoms.

Methods

We applied metabarcoding to retrieve diatom diversity from surface and core sedimentary DNA. The taxonomic assignment binned sequence types (lineages) into genera and created taxonomic (abundance of lineages within different genera) and ...