I am delighted to report that Dr Encarnacion Montoya Romo (currently of the Botanical Institute of Barcelona) has been awarded a NERC Fellowship to join the PCRG. The project is entitled “Evaluation of tropical forests sensitivity to past climate change” (FORSENS) and will examine environmental change at four study sites from different regions of the Neotropics: 1) Khomer Kotcha (Bolivia; 17oS, 4100 m above sea level [asl]) [1-3], 2) Consuelo (Peru, 13oS; 1400 m asl) [4-5], 3) Banos (Ecuador; 0oS, 4000 m asl), and 4) a new lowland site from Columbia/Ecuador to be collected during field work during the project.
The aim of the project is to explore the spatial and temporal consitance of tropical vegetation response to aridity (mid-Holocene dry period) and warming (last deglaciation). The project will use fossil pollen, chironomids, charcoal, non pollen palynomorphs and organic biomarkersto build up a comprehnsive picture of environmental change. The diversity of the project means we have a number of exciting partners, including: Steve Brooks (Natural History Museum), Prof. Mark Bush (Florida Tech), Prof. Valenti Rull (Botanical Institute of Barcelona) and the Dr. Pauline Gulliver (NERC radicarbon facility).
The fellowship will commence in October 2012. Further information will appear on is blog and group website soon.
REFERENCES
1. Williams, J.J., S.J. Brooks, and W.D. Gosling, Response of chironomids to late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change in the eastern Bolivian Andes. Journal of Paleolimnology, in press.
2. Williams, J.J., et al., Vegetation, climate and fire in the eastern Andes (Bolivia) during the last 18,000 years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2011. 312(1-2): p. 115-126.
3. Williams, J.J., et al., Four thousand years of environmental change and human activity in the Cochabamba Basin, Bolivia. Quaternary Research, 2011. 76: p. 58-69.
4. Bush, M.B., M.R. Silman, and D.H. Urrego, 48,000 years of climate and forest change in a biodiversity hotspot. Science, 2004. 303: p. 827-829.
5. Urrego, D.H., M.B. Bush, and M.R. Silman, A long history of cloud and forest migration from Lake Consuelo, Peru. Quaternary Research, 2010. 73(2): p. 364-373.
Ecology of the past 