Beringian flora and fauna from <i>sed</i> aDNA at Duvanny Yar, Sakha Republic, during marine isotope stages 2 and 3

2026/01/20 by M EDWARDS, J MURTON, Min Huang +4 · 1 voice
Environmental Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies #Climate change and permafrost #Polar Research and Ecology

paper · doi:10.1080/15230430.2025.2593677

openalex publication_date 2026/01/20 · openalex created_date 2026/01/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

Beringia’s extensive late Quaternary deposits of yedoma silt provide rich floristic and faunal records. Sampling of frozen yedoma exposures typically uses multiple baydzherakhs (residual silt heaps developed as conical thermokarst mounds) that collectively straddle vertical and horizontal space in thaw slumps. We used radiocarbon-dated vertical and horizontal transects to assess stratigraphic and sampling consistency at Duvanny Yar (a critical late Pleistocene stratotype). Most samples are ascribed to later marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 or to MIS 2 (ca. 40,000 to 20,000 years ago). The horizontal (MIS 3) transect revealed an undulating paleolandscape. Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from frozen yedoma revealed floristic composition in time and space. Metabarcoding and shotgun metagenomic molecular floras and pollen spectra are ecologically consistent. Floristically, little separates MIS 3 and 2; xeric, treeless vegetation, dominated by grasses and forbs including disturbance indicators, characterizes both stages. Holocene samples have a distinct, woody-dominated flora. Ordination of metabarcoding samples from the horizontal transect shows samples are highly variable but do not form a discernible spatial gradient or mosaic, possibly reflecting microtopographically driven plant distribution across a largely homogeneous landscape. Mammals identified from MIS 3 and 2 include horse, steppe bison, woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, reindeer, hare, and vole.

Citations

• Quantifying Wedge-Ice Volumes in Yedoma and Thermokarst Basin Deposits
• Palaeoenvironmental Interpretation of Yedoma Silt (Ice Complex) Deposition as Cold‐Climate Loess, Duvanny Yar, Northeast Siberia
• Pollen Representation, Source Area, and Basin Size: Toward a Unified Theory of Pollen Analysis
• Deposition models for chronological records
• The transient layer: implications for geocryology and climate‐change science
• Bayesian Analysis of Radiocarbon Dates
• The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0–55 cal kBP)

Discussions

• Edwards et al.’s #newarticle for our “Beringian Environments” collection provides the first detailed sedimentary ancient DNA data from the iconic Duvanny Yar site in the Sakha Republic, revealing dry [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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