Ancient environmental DNA reveals the distinct fingerprints of whaling and climate change on Antarctic marine biodiversity

Environmental DNA metabarcoding of five Western Antarctic Peninsula sediment records shows biodiversity shifts over more than two centuries, with change accelerating in recent decades.

• Why it matters: Short-term ecological monitoring has limited ability to capture how industrial whaling and human-driven climate change reshaped Antarctic marine communities over longer timescales.
• What they did: The study used environmental DNA metabarcoding across five sediment records spanning pre- and during major human impacts, then partitioned whole-community change variance to climate change versus whaling.
• The result: Both drivers are linked to community restructuring, with distinct variance patterns attributable to each; whaling is negatively associated with metazoan families feeding from the water column.

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