Discussion
Here, we have compared a sedDNA record with long-term microscopy-based
monitoring to determine whether sedDNA can be used to reliably
reconstruct past phytoplankton communities. Temporal trends in diversity
and relative abundance and occurrence at the phylum level were broadly
comparable between the sedDNA and microscopy records. However, each
method detected a distinct composition of genera, with only a small
proportion of genera detected by both methods.