The EGU General Assembly is a conference run by the European Geosciences Union. It marks one of the most exciting weeks for geoscientists across the globe, bringing Earth, planetary and space scientist together to learn, present and discuss research and ideas.
This year, the EGU went online and EcoGen was lucky enough to still be able to take part. We took part in the “The ancient DNA revolution: sedaDNA from Pleistocene-Holocene lacustrine and marine sediments” session, click here for a peek at the program. This was the first time that ancient DNA would be represented at the EGU at its own session, for us, being able to take part was fantastic honour.
Head of EcoGen, Inger Alsos, kicked off the session with a presentation on the work that we carry out here at EcoGen. The presentation that was given can be found here.
Later, our very own Dilli Prasad Rijal gave another great presentation about the work that was carried out by EcoGen in northern Fennoscandia. Read more about this research, here.
Next from EcoGen came Sandra Graces Pastor giving a poster presentation on Holocene plant community changes in the Western Alps, inferred from sedaDNA. Previous studies have used pollen and microfossil evidence, but the use of ancient DNA from lake sediments has been under studied in these areas. Preliminary results of Sandra’s findings can be found on her poster; here.
The final presentation from the EcoGen research group came from Scarlett Zetter, who presented a poster presentation about EcoGen alpine research. The Eastern Alps have rich biodiversity but the palaeoecological record of this region is relatively understudied. Our research looks at how human impacts and climate change have affected plant communities in these regions, across the Holocene, using ancient sedimentary DNA. This poster focuses on one lake in Austria, Krumschnabelsee, which can be found here.