Sedimentary DNA can track decadal-centennial changes in fish species abundance

Far little is known about long-term dynamics of population for almost all macro organisms during pre-instrumental era, because utility of sedimentary DNA technique to reconstruct ‘abundance’ remains to be clear. Here we focused on fish DNA in marine sediments as a potential tool to elucidate the decadal-centennial dynamics in pelagic fish abundances in waters. Based on quantitative PCR method for sedimentary DNA applied to the sediment-core samples collected from anoxic bottom sediments in Beppu Bay, Japan, we first detected and quantified the DNA of three dominant fish species, Japanese anchovy, Japanese sardine, and jack mackerel, in the sediment sequences spanning over the last 300 years. The temporal changes in the fish DNA concentrations were consistent with those in fish scale abundances and the landing from the neighboring area and in Japan, suggesting the utility of the sedimentary DNA to track decadal-centennial dynamics in fish abundance in waters.