NIRB �Ancient DNA in Lake Sediment� Project Proposal File Number 16YN010Who: Researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder, the University of Buffalo (New York), and the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Teams will consist of 4 scientists along with local Inuit guides and/or polar bear guards. What: We propose two short field programs.Lake CF8: The science team will travel to the lake site by snowmobile (May), ATV (July). We will camp at the lake in tents that will be taken with us when the work is completed. The team will be 4 scientists and an full time Inuit guide/polar bear guard, plus Inuit teams to transport the team to the lake and back to Clyde when work is complete. We will obtain sediment cores from the bottom of the lake, During the summer season ecologists will map the vegetation around the lake. We will not leave any permanent facilities at the sites, and expect our camping activities to have no long-term impact on the environment. Lake AFR: The science team will travel to the lake site by helicopter from Pond Inlet (August). We will camp at the lake in tents for 5 days. We will obtain sediment cores from the bottom of the lake, and map the vegetation around the lake. We will not leave any permanent facilities, and expect our camping activities to have no long-term impact on the environment. Why: We will reconstruct how climate and vegetation have changed in the past on Baffin Island by analyzing the sediment record preserved at the bottom of these lakes. The Arctic is changing rapidly and we want to understand how it has changed in the past to learn how much change we might expect in the future. We hope to learn what conditions were like during past warm times to help Nunavut anticipate the future. Where: Lake CF8 is a relatively isolated lake near the town of Clyde. AFR lake is a very isolated site at 800 meters above sea level, ~35 km from Pond Inlet. We will be working on the lake itself and in the immediate surrounding area with no expected impacts on the environment. There are no known archaeological sites around/near either of the lakes we propose to work on.