EvoCave: Investigating 122 000 years of high-latitude faunal diversity using palaeozoology, archaeology, palaeoecology and ancient DNA

During the last interglacial-glacial cycle (120,000 years), the climate in the northern hemisphere has changed from a warm period similar to the one we live in now, into a full ice age and then back to our time. Understanding past changes in biodiversity during such cold and warm cycles provides important knowledge on the resilience of species and ecosystems to current climate change. Knowledge on past animal diversity can be obtained by investigating old sediments, but in northern Europe records from the last interglacial period are very rare due to the erosion of massive glaciers during the last ice age. We therefore know almost nothing about the animal species and diversity that lived in this region more than 100 000 years ago. In this project we will study a unique high-latitude (68°50’N) karst cave in northern Norway, in which an extraordinary diversity of animal bones is preserved. The record from this cave will be analysed by an interdisciplinary team bringing together people from the fields of archaeology, geology, evolutionary biology, paleozoology, genomics and ancient DNA. The combined analyses will allow us to relate past animal diversity with long-term climate models during the last interglacial in northern Europe.

Ancient records of past faunal biodiversity that pre-date the last glacial period are essential for our understanding of the resilience and adaptability of ecosystems to the effects of current global warming. Such records however, are extremely rare at high latitude due to the erosion of massive glaciers that covered large parts of, northern Europe. We therefore know almost nothing of the fauna that inhabited this region during this period. Here, we capitalize on the excellent preservation conditions in a high-latitude (68°50’N) karst cave — Kjøpsvik cave in northern Norway. Exploratory excavations have discovered a rich, unique species assemblage covering an unprecedented time period, and from which preliminary ancient DNA (aDNA) has been obtained. Kjøpsvik cave therefore provides an exceptional opportunity for the comparative, interdisciplinary analyses of a high-latitude ecosystem throughout the last interglacial-glacial cycle, enabling the direct evaluation of hypotheses on the evolution, biogeographic history and glacial survival of key species. We will reconstruct the faunal diversity over a 122 ka period and place this in a temporal and spatial pan-European framework, providing novel evidence for hypotheses on the northern limits of boreal ecosystems, mammals and humans in the Arctic and their responses to dramatic shifts in climate. By studying such responses during a pre-industrial epoch at high-latitude, this project will yield fundamental insights in processes of extinction, range shifts and adaptation in a region that is now warming at rates significantly exceeding the global average.