Ecological legacies of past fire and human activity in a Panamanian forest

February 23, 2023
WDG

Open access:

McMichael, C.N.H., Vink, V., Heijink, B.M., Witteveen, N.H., Piperno, D.R., Gosling, W.D. & Bush, M.B. (2023) Ecological legacies of past fire and human activity in a Panamanian forest. Plants, People, Planet 5, 281-291. DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10344

Long-term fire and vegetation change in northwestern Amazonia

December 6, 2022
WDG

Open access:

Heijink, B.M., Mattijs, Q.A., Valencia, R., Philip, A.L., Piperno, D.R. & McMichael, C.N.H. (2022) Long-term fire and vegetation change in northwestern Amazonia. Biotropica DOI: 10.1111/btp.13175

Ecological legacies of past fire and human activity in a Panamanian forest

November 22, 2022
WDG

Open access:

McMichael, C.N.H., Vink, V., Heijink, B.M., Witteveen, N.H., Piperno, D.R., Gosling, W.D. & Bush, M.B. (2022) Ecological legacies of past fire and human activity in a Panamanian forest. Plants, People, Planet. DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10344

Environments Through Time

November 18, 2022
WDG

The University of Amsterdam “Environments Through Time” course is currently underway. This cross-disciplinary course is part of the MSc Biological Sciences program and also attracts many students from the MSc Earth Sciences. During the course students gain an understanding of the importance of having a long-term (centennial to millennial) context to understanding environmental problems, and how datasets can be generated that are relevant to these timescales. To gain an understanding of uncertainty in reconstructing past environmental change students conduct a re-analysis of previously published datasets (such as those archived in Neotoma) and assess if the findings of those papers was robust. To do this students develop skills in data mining, Bayesian probability modelling, multi-variate statistical analysis, and change-point analysis. At the end of the course students have gained experience in the critical evaluation of the scientific literature, transferable numerical skills, and a greater appreciation of Earth history and past environmental change.

Crystal McMichael making statistics fun with the Environments Through Time class of 2022!

The 2022 edition of the Environments Through Time course is taught by:

If you would like to learn more about past environmental change and its relevance to ongoing societal, climatic and ecological change sign up for the MSc Biological Sciences or MSc Earth Sciences and take this course. If this course sparks further your interest in exploring past environmental change then further opportunities exist to take on masters projects in this field with our team.

Characterising Dutch forests, wetlands and cultivated lands on the basis of phytolith assemblages

September 13, 2022
WDG

Open access:

de Wolf, I.K., McMichael, C.N.H., Philip, A.L. & Gosling, W.D. (2022) Characterising Dutch forests, wetlands and cultivated lands on the basis of phytolith assemblages. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences 101, e17. DOI: 10.1017/njg.2022.14

This paper started off as a research thesis undertaken by Iris de Wolf at the University of Amsterdam as part of her BSc Biology degree in 2018. The project was supervised by Crystal McMichael and William Gosling and has subsequently been further developed. If you are student or researcher interested in undertaking a similar type of projects please get in touch.

Listen to Iris’s journal podcast speaking about the subject here.

Early to mid-Holocene human activity exerted gradual influences on Amazonian forest vegetation

March 9, 2022
WDG

Nascimento, M.N., Heijink, B.M., Bush, M.B., Gosling, W.D. & McMichael, C.N.H. (2022) Early to mid-Holocene human activity exerted gradual influences on Amazonian forest vegetation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377, 20200498. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0498

A palaeoecological perspective on the transformation of the tropical Andes by early human activity

March 8, 2022
WDG

Bush, M.B., Rozas-Davila, A., Raczka, M., Nascimento, M., Valencia, B., Sales, R.K., McMichael, C.N.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2022) A palaeoecological perspective on the transformation of the tropical Andes by early human activity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377, 20200497. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0497

Scarce fire activity in north and north-western Amazonian forests during the last 10,000 years

December 20, 2021
WDG

#Openaccess #Teameffort

Gosling WD, Maezumi SY, Heijink BM, Nascimento MN, Raczka MF, van der Sande MT, Bush MB, McMichael CNH. 2021. Scarce fire activity in north and north-western Amazonian forests during the last 10,000 years. Plant Ecology & Diversity. DOI: 10.1080/17550874.2021.2008040

Palaeoecology of Africa

September 21, 2021
WDG

I am pleased to announce that the new, open access, volume of Palaeoecology of Africa (PoA) should be available to download in October. The “Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics” volume comprises 24 chapters, produced by more than 70 authors, and contains extensive review papers, personal perspectives on hot topics, as well as new research and data papers.

To find out more on the volume visit the publishers web site: PoA Vol. 35

Over the next few months I aim to blog about the various specific chapters to showcase some of the key findings. I hope that this book will provide a useful resource to all researchers working on past climate, environmental and vegetation change in Africa, and will provide a springboard for the start of the new “Mapping Ancient Africa” project that will kick off in October.

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