William Gosling | Ecology of the past

The ACER pollen and charcoal database: a global resource to document vegetation and fire response to abrupt climate changes during the last glacial period

October 11, 2017
WDG

Goni, M.F.S., Desprat, S., Daniau, A., Bassinot, F.C., Polanco-Martinez, J.M., Harrison, S.P., Allen, J.R.M., Anderson, R.S., Behling, H., Bonnefille, R., Burjachs, F., Carrion, J.S., Cheddadi, R., Clark, J.S., Combourieu-Nebout, N., Mustaphi, C.J.C., Debusk, G.H., Dupont, L.M., Finch, J.M., Fletcher, W.J., Giardini, M., Gonzalez, C., Gosling, W.D., Grigg, L.D., Grimm, E.C., Hayashi, R., Helmens, K., Heusser, L.E., Hill, T., Hope, G., Huntley, B., Igarashi, Y., Irino, T., Jacobs, B., Jimenez-Moreno, G., Kawai, S., Kershaw, A.P., Kumon, F., Lawson, I.T., Ledru, M., Lezine, A., Liew, P.M., Magri, D., Marchant, R., Margari, V., Mayle, F.E., McKenzie, G.M., Moss, P., Mueller, S., Mueller, U.C., Naughton, F., Newnham, R.M., Oba, T., Perez-Obiol, R., Pini, R., Ravazzi, C., Roucoux, K.H., Rucina, S.M., Scott, L., Takahara, H., Tzedakis, P.C., Urrego, D.H., van Geel, B., Valencia, B.G., Vandergoes, M.J., Vincens, A., Whitlock, C.L., Willard, D.A. & Yamamoto, M. (2017) The ACER pollen and charcoal database: a global resource to document vegetation and fire response to abrupt climate changes during the last glacial period. Earth System Science Data 9, 679-695. DOI: 10.5194/essd-9-679-2017

Pollen-vegetation richness and diversity relationships in the tropics

October 10, 2017
WDG

Online, open access:

Gosling, W.D., Julier, A.C.M., Adu-Bredu, S., Djagbletey, G.D., Fraser, W.T., Jardine, P.E., Lomax, B.H., Malhi, Y., Manu, E.A., Mayle, F.E. & Moore, S. (2017) Pollen-vegetation richness and diversity relationships in the tropics. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. DOI: 10.1007/s00334-017-0642-y

Mauritius on fire: Tracking historical human impacts on biodiversity loss

October 9, 2017
WDG

Gosling, W.D., de Kruif, J.*, Norder, S.J., de Boer, E.J., Hooghiemstra, H., Rijsdijk, K.F. & McMichael, C.N.H. (2017) Mauritius on fire: Tracking historical human impacts on biodiversity loss. Biotropica. DOI: 10.1111/btp.12490

* This paper evolved from the BSc Future Planet Studies thesis of Jona de Kruif (2015) “Multi-proxy analysis of the effect of climate and human activity on the environment of Mauritius during the Holocene” at the University of Amsterdam. Jona was supervised by William Gosling and Erik de Boer.

Aquatic community response to volcanic eruptions on the Ecuadorian Andean flank

October 9, 2017
WDG

Online, open access:

Matthews-Bird, F., Brooks, S.J., Gosling, W.D., Gulliver, P., Mothes, P. & Montoya, E. (2017) Aquatic community response to volcanic eruptions on the Ecuadorian Andean flank: Evidence from the palaeoecological record. Journal of Paleolimnology 58: 437-453. DOI: 10.1007/s10933-017-0001-0

Job: Physical-chemical research technician with management skills

October 5, 2017
WDG

Vacancy: Physical-chemical research technician with management skills (salary scale 10)
Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics
University of Amsterdam
Closing date: 22 October 2017

This position will link strongly with the IBED Department of Ecosystem & Landscape Dynamics which aims to improve our understanding of the functioning and dynamics of abiotic and biotic components of (geo-)ecosystems across landscapes through time. To achieve this aim we make use of a wide range of state-of-the-art research facilities provided by IBED (for more information on facilities click here).

For full details of the vacancy and how to apply click here, or visit Academic Transfer.

The modern pollen-vegetation relationships of a tropical forest-savannah mosaic landscape, Ghana, West Africa

August 22, 2017
WDG

Julier, A.C.M., Jardine, P.E., Adu-Bredu, S., Coe, A.L., Duah-Gyamfi, A., Fraser, W.T., Lomax, B.H., Malhi, Y., Moore, S., Owusu-Afriyie, K. & Gosling, W.D. (2017) The modern pollen-vegetation relationships of a tropical forest-savannah mosaic landscape, Ghana, West Africa. Palynology online. DOI: 10.1080/01916122.2017.1356392

Pollen art…

July 29, 2017
WDG

Pollen grains created with glue, salt and paint on card.

Day 1 of my summer holiday raining = art with the kids.

Fields and feasts

July 28, 2017
WDG

If you have exciting new research on past ecological change similar to this please consider submitting it for consideration to be published in Vegetation History & Archaeobotany.

If you have exciting new research on past ecological change please consider submitting it to Vegetation History & Archaeobotany.

Two articles recently published on-line in the journal Vegetation History & Archaebotany (of which I am an Associate Editor) recently caught my attention.These explore:

agricultural practices of people living in the Netherlands c. 3000-2000 years ago (Arnoldussen & van der Linden, 2017), and
what it was the ancient Maya feasted upon (Cagnato, 2017)!

For more detailed thoughts on these papers read on…

Field work in Ecuador

July 27, 2017
WDG

IBEDs Crystal McMichael hard at work sampling sediments in the Andes

Insights into recent field work in Ecuador by a team lead by Crystal McMichael can be found in a recent blog from our collaborators at the Instituto Geofisico, Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Quito (Ecuador).

Trabajo colaborativo entre Volcanólogos y Palenólogos potenciará el conocimiento sobre el Paleoclima en el Valle de Latacunga en los últimos 20 mil años by Patricia Mothes

Images of modern pollen from Ghana

July 26, 2017
WDG

The images taken by Adele Julier to help her with pollen identifications during her PhD at The Open University (UK) are now available to download. Please note these images are not of reference material but identifications, made by Adele and myself, of the pollen grains found within her pollen traps. The pollen traps were deployed within vegetation study plots in wet evergreen forest, semi-deciduous moist forest, and the forest-savanna transition zone in Ghana. Further publications on this work and a thesis coming soon…

Julier, A.C.M. & Gosling, W.D. (2017) Modern pollen types, Ghana (v.2). Figshare. doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5240956.v2

Example of pollen images collated by Adele