William Gosling | Ecology of the past

PCRG November & December

January 10, 2013
WDG

The last two months of 2012 were exceptionally busy!

On the research front

Grants took centre stage for much of my time. First writing for the NERC December 1st deadline was pressured as usual, and second response to reviewers comments on the July submission was interesting.
Paper writing proceeded with reviewer and co-author comments on three manuscripts hopefully desitined for Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology (lead by Hayley), Palaeo3 (lead by Macrarena) and The Holocene (with Joe Williams) respectively.
Four scientifc meetings were attended by group members: 1) British Ecological Society winter meeting at University of Birmingham (myself), , 2) American Geophysical Union congress in Sanfrancisco (Lottie), 3) Dutch and Belgian palynology meeting at the University of Amsterdam (myself), and 4) the Palaeo50 workshop at Oxford University (Encarni).

On the teaching and administration front

Two tasks dominated the non-research activity: 1) teaching the Geological Record of Environmental Change (S369) exams assessment and assigment, and 2) as Post Graduate Tutor keeping up with NERC developments for the new Doctoral Training Partnerships.

PCRG members on filed work in Cayabe-Coca National Park (2012). Left to right: Hayley, Encarni, William and Frazer.

PCRG members on field work in Cayabe-Coca National Park (2012). Left to right: Hayley, Encarni, William and Frazer.
Encarni and Frazer have returned to Ecuador Jan-Feb 2013 to collect further sedimentary cores. More on the blog soon…

Finally all that remains is to say “Happy New Year” from the PCRG and on with 2013… 🙂

Palynologishe Kring

January 9, 2013
WDG

Prof. H. Hoogiemstra Chair of Palaeoecology & Landscape ecology at IBED

Dutch and Belgian Palynology meeting
University of Amsterdam
13/12/2012

Many thanks to Henry Hooghiemstra for the invitation to present at the recent palynology meeting in Amsterdam hosted by the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Dynamics (IBED). The program of talks was broad and interesting ranging from the deep time geological history of the Amazon basin (Carina Hoorn) to the use of video game technology in visulizing landscapes (Bodo Schuetze); watch videos of his work, or read the thesis.

View Schuetze’s work on recreating Mauritius in 3D on Vimeo

I contributed some new work on human-landscape interaction in the central Andes, entitled: “Ecosystem service provision sets the pace for pre-Columbian Andean societal development”. It was very exciting to get feedback from such an esteemed audience on this new work. The days talks concluded with the IBED seminar given by Mark Bush (Florida Institute of Technology) which countinued the South American human-environment theme but we moved to the lowlands for “Amazonia in 1491: A paleoecological perspective”. Mark’s talk built on his recent work exmining the extent of human impact on Amazonia (references 1-3 below) which has cautioned against assuming widespread and intensive human impact within Amazonia prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Following the seminars we had drinks at the institute and an excellent meal in Amsterdam. Thanks again to Henry and all those at IBED who hosted a high class and scientifically stimulating meeting.

Two studentships avaliable

January 9, 2013
WDG

Two NERC algorithm funded PhD studentships are currently available with the PCRG. The projects are focused on understanding past environmental change in west tropical Africa and Amazonian-Andean Ecuador. Both projects will involve field work and build on on-going research within the lab.

Closing date 31/01/2013

One project will work on samples collected during fieldwork in 2012 near Papallacta (Ecuador).

Further project details and how to apply below…
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Palae-Mo (day 16)

November 18, 2012
WDG

Frazer proves that the Mo does not stop work in the palaeo lab..

: Frazer’s Mexi-MO is coming along well…

Enjoying the Palaeo-Mo’s? If so for more picture and and the opportunity to donate visit the OU Roc Soc team Movember pages.

For more Open University Mos’

Palae-MO (day 9)

November 12, 2012
WDG

It is Movember (raising awaerness of mens health issues) and Frazer and Will have joined the OU Roc Soc team in growing their Mo’s:

Please support the Palae-Mo by donating at: http://uk.movember.com/team/725605

Check back soon for more Mo updates…

Understanding pollen and spore diversity

November 2, 2012
WDG

Linnean Society Palynology Specialist Group meeting
Linnean Society of London
Burlington House
1st November 2012

PCRG members at the Linnean Society 1st November
Left-Right: Hayley Keen, William Gosling, Alice Kennedy and Encarni Montoya

Yesterday four members of the Palaeoenvironmental Change Research Group (PCRG) visited the Linnean Society of London to attended the annual palynology meeting. The talks were excellent and covered a wide range of issues in palaynology from the configuration of Late Triassic Cassopollis grains (Wolfram Kurschner, University of Oslo), through how pollen and spores are built (Stephen Blackmore, Royal Botanic Garderns, Edinburgh) to understanding global patterns of mass-extinctions with particular focus on the Cretaceous-Paleogene (Vivi Vajda, University of Lund). For further information on the days program click here to visit the meeting web site.

The PCRG contribution to the meeting was made by Hayley Keen who presented the first paper related to her doctoral research to an exteral audience entitled “Pollen counting for diverse tropical ecosystems”. The paper presented:

A statistical model (developed by co-author Felix Hanke) which simulaltes pollen counting in order to estimate the size of pollen count required to develop a robust ecological insight from the fossil pollen record, and
compared model predictions with empirical data from a diverse tropopical ecosystem (Mera, Ecuador) to assess the reliablity of the model.

It is hoped the application of the model to fossil pollen counting will allow more efficient and effective use of palynologists time. The paper was very well recieved despite the audible intake of breath when Hayley recommened that to characterize pollen richness (diversity) in some settings pollen counts in excess of 2000 grains might be required!

PCRG October

October 31, 2012
WDG

The back end of September and October has been very busy as I have tried to catch up with the teaching, administration and research activity which somewhat accumulated whilst on field work!

Major tasks have been:
1) the marking and coordination for level 3 Geological Record of Environmental Change (S369) module examination,
2) getting used to my new role as Post Graduate Tutor looking after all things related to a doctoral students in the Department of Environment, Earth & Ecosystems, and
3) trying to find time to finish off three manuscripts for submission!

Other members of the lab have also been busy:
* Encarni has arrived from Valenti Rull‘s lab at the Botanical Institute in Barcelona as a NERC Fellow and is settling in to life in Milton Keynes, more details soon…
* Lottie is getting into data analysis and writing up of the Lake Bosumtwi pollen an N isotope data,
* Natalie is writing, crunching numbers and waiting for a machine to be fixed…
* Bryan is working on gelling biogeographic data together in GIS

Imagae of a Toarcian foraminifera taken by Alice Kennedy facilitated by the new cable which allows our microscope camera to talk to a computer – hooray!

* Hayley has been preparing for talking at the Linnean Society palynology meeting on 1st November “Understanding pollen and spore diversity”, and helping “steal” a microtome for sectoning her wood macrofossils,
* Frazer has started to plot Andean and Amazonian midge distributions against temperature, and
* Alice has been taking photos…

In the midst of all this fun I was sent this great video which brightened my day. I hope you enjoy it as well…

Research Fellowships at The Open University

October 26, 2012
WDG

FOUR Research Investment Fellowship
Department of Environment, Earth & Ecosystems
Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space & Astronomical Research
Closing date : 30/11/2012

The four fellowships are advertised in four areas of Earth & Environmental Science; however, applications from exceptional scientists in related fields are also welcome.

For further details visit:
* Earth Science
* Integrated Earth System Modelling
* Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
* Ecosystem Services

If you are interested in any of these posts and want to discuss links to the Palaeoenvironmental Change Research Group please contact William Gosling.

Sediment sampling on the Andean flank, Ecuador

October 10, 2012
HayleyKeen

One of the key goals of the fieldtrip to Ecuador (August-September) was to sample organic and volcanic (tephra) layers from sedimentary exposures with the aim of obtaining new information about past envrionmental change in the region. Our Ecuadorian collaborator, Dr Patricia Mothes (Instituto Geofisico), had identified four of sites she thought might be useful too us: El Fatima Dique, Mera “2” Dique, El Rosol and Vinillos.

At the Fatima site, near Puyo, a thin organic bed was sampled sandwiched between volcanic ash deposits. Wood macrofossils from this deposit have been dated to the last glacial period.

For further descriptions of what we found and field photos read on…

Atlantic control of tropical climate

October 2, 2012
WDG

PUBLISHED:
Nicole A. S. Mosblech, Mark B. Bush, William D. Gosling, David Hodell, Louise Thomas, Peter van Calsteren, Alexander Correa-Metrio, Bryan G. Valencia, Jason Curtis & Robert van Woesik (2012) North Atlantic forcing of Amazonian precipitation during the last ice age. Nature Geoscience, 5: 817-820.