The use of lake sedimentary DNA to track the long-term changes in both terrestrial and aquatic biota is a rapidly advancing field in paleoecological research. Although largely applied nowadays, knowledge gaps remain in this field and there is therefore still research to be conducted to ensure the reliability of the sedimentary DNA signal. Building on the most recent literature and seven original case studies, we synthesize the state-of-the-art analytical procedures for effective sampling, extraction, amplification, quantification and/or generation of DNA inventories from sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) via high-throughput sequencing technologies. We provide recommendations based on current knowledge and best practises.

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Analyses of sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) have increased exponentially over the last decade and hold great potential to study the effects of anthropogenic stressors on lake biota over time. Herein, we synthesise the literature that has applied a sedDNA approach to track historical changes in lake biodiversity in response to anthropogenic impacts, with an emphasis on the past c. 200 years. We identified the following research themes that are of particular relevance: (1) eutrophication and climate change as key drivers of limnetic communities; (2) increasing homogenisation of limnetic communities across large spatial scales; and (3) the dynamics and effects of invasive species as traced in lake sediment archives. Altogether, this review highlights the potential of sedDNA to draw a more comprehensive picture of the response of lake biota to anthropogenic stressors, opening up new avenues in the field of paleoecology by unrevealing a hidden historical biodiversity, building new paleo‐indicators, and reflecting either taxonomic or functional attributes. Broadly, sedDNA analyses provide new perspectives that can inform ecosystem management, conservation, and restoration by offering an approach to measure ecological integrity and vulnerability, as well as ecosystem functioning.

Major advances over the past decade in the field of ancient DNA are providing access to past paleogenomic diversity, but the diverse functions and biosynthetic capabilities of this growing paleome remain largely elusive. Here, we investigated the dental calculus of 12 Neanderthals and 52 anatomically modern humans spanning 100 kya to the present and reconstructed 459 bacterial metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). We identified a biosynthetic gene cluster (BGC) shared by seven Middle and Upper Paleolithic individuals that allows for the heterologous production of a class of previously unknown metabolites we name paleofurans. This paleobiotechnological approach demonstrates that viable biosynthetic machinery can be produced from the preserved genetic material of ancient organisms, allowing access to natural products from the Pleistocene and providing a promising area for natural product exploration.

Many European lake ecosystems, including their respective catchment areas, underwent anthropogenic environmental changes over the last centuries. This has resulted in changes in the aquatic and terrestrial vegetation, but historical records on the composition of the past vegetation on centennial scale are scarce. In this study, we examined changes in the terrestrial and aquatic plant communities in and around Lower Lake Constance using metabarcoding of sedimentary DNA (sedDNA) of three cores from different sub‐basins covering the past, up to 300 years. We successfully identified an average of c. 3000 sequence variants (molecular operational taxonomic units ‐ MOTUs) and obtained a taxonomically annotated dataset of 127 species, 104 genera, and 72 families. We could detect major changes in the terrestrial and aquatic vegetation of the Lower Lake Constance region by examining the cores. For example, alpha diversity decreased in the last c. 100 years, and this decrease was more pronounced in the terrestrial than in the aquatic plant community. Unlike the terrestrial plant community, the current aquatic plant‐community composition partially resembles the community from before the 20th‐century eutrophication phase of the lake. In addition to changes that can be attributed to anthropogenic impacts, we also captured the effect of DNA sedimentation on the terrestrial DNA diversity representation in sediments during periods of extensive flooding and potentially as a consequence of extremely cold winters. With sedDNA from Lower Lake Constance, we provide a new local dataset to investigate and extend the historical changes of different shoreline habitats and to identify characteristic and invasive plant species. Such highly resolved datasets spanning the past centuries can provide detailed information on human environmental history in densely populated regions that have undergone severe changes in the recent past.