A6

Project A6 will investigate the role of anthropogenic disturbance in the past. Previous paleolimnological investigations conducted on a core from Lower Lake Constance spanning the last 15 000 years indicate anthropogenic impact in distinct phases starting at about 2000 BC. This is manifested in episodes of higher bioproductivity in the lake, as documented in pigment analyses (Neukirch1991). Using ancient environmental DNA from similar sediment cores from Lower Lake Constance, we will investigate past changes in aquatic communities at a high resolution and additionally analyse DNA proxies for human presence, such as signs of human land use in past vegetation and occurrence of livestock (Giguet-Covex et al. 2014, Pansu et al. 2015), as well as human gut bacteria. We hypothesize that, in Lower Lake Constance, previous episodes of anthropogenic impact are traceable and important, but that prior to the 20th century eutrophication, the biological community was impacted mostly by natural environmental changes.
_{Giguet-Covex C, et al. 2014. Long livestock farming history and human landscape shaping revealed by lake sediment DNA. Nature Communications 5:Artn 3211.
Neukirch S. 1991. Pigmente in Sedimente des Bodensee-Untersee als Indikatoren der Bioproduktion (Kern US8707). Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 71:279 - 286.
Pansu J, et al. 2015. Reconstructing long-term human impacts on plant communities: an ecological approach based on lake sediment DNA. Molecular Ecology 24:1485-1498.}