I am delighted to announce that a new volume of the classic book series “Palaeoecology of Africa“ is now under development. This new volume (hopefully number 35) will focus on “Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics” and build on recent initiatives to develop the “African Pollen Database”. The volume will be guest edited by Anne-Marie Lezine (LOCEAN), Louis Scott (University of the Free State) and myself, along side the series editor Jürgen Runge (Johann Wolfgang Goethe University). If you are interested to contribute please get in touch.
Scope
The Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics volume of the long-running Palaeoecology of Africa series will showcase palynological work from across the African continent and surrounding regions, and place this in the context of past climatic, human and evolutionary change. We are keen to use this opportunity to catalyse the archiving of previously published and new datasets into the open access online African Pollen Database. The volume will be published entirely open access online and will contain four types of manuscript: (i) Research papers, (ii) Data papers, (iii) Review papers, and (iv) Perspectives.
- Research papers should present new palynological data generated from either: (i) modern settings with a view to understand pollen-vegetation relationships, or (ii) ancient sedimentary deposits that reconstruct past vegetation change.
- Data papers should present descriptions of new, or previously published but not digitally archived, palynological data generated from either: (i) modern settings with a view to understand pollen-vegetation relationships, or (ii) ancient sedimentary deposits that reconstruct past vegetation change
- Review papers should draw together regional, or thematic, aspects of palynology in Africa; the inclusion of synthetic analysis is permitted if appropriate.
- Perspective papers should be stimulating and reflective essays providing a personal perspective on a key area of palynological research in Africa.
All manuscripts will be rigorously peer reviewed by experts in the field (as per a submission to an international scientific journal); please note that the submission of a manuscript does not guarantee inclusion in the final publication. Furthermore, authors submitting manuscripts may be expected to anonymously review other manuscripts submitted for consideration to be included in the volume. If manuscripts are accepted for publication authors must make all datasets available open access through the African Pollen Database (under development), and that datasets will subsequently be included in NEOTOMA (www.neotomadb.org).
It should be noted that due to the limited space, and to avoid potential overlap, within the volume all prospective authors should submit a “manuscript concept” as soon as possible the editorial team in advance of any full submission to discuss fit to the volume (see details on submission below).
Ecology of the past 