News | Ecology of the past

Introducing Tessa Driessen

February 16, 2015
TessaDriessen

Hi I’m Tessa and really excited to introduce myself here!

I’m an Environmental Biology Master student from Utrecht University (UU) doing a research internship in Amsterdam with William Gosling and Rike Wagner of the UU. Most people would describe me as a typical biologist because I like identifying plants and know some birds by their name. Personally I disagree because I lack the beard and hardly wear woollen socks. Besides looking at birds and plants I’m also interested in biodiversity and palaeoecology, and I will try to combine these interests in my research project on a sediment core from Samoa. I will be working on lake sediment cores from Samoa and hope fossil record can give me an overview of the natural history of the island (past c. 10,000 years); and an insight into what impact human colonisation had on the biodiversity. To explore the islands natural history I will be looking at pollen, charcoal and non pollen palynomorphs.

The sediment core on which I will be working has already been recovered and currently resides in beautiful Southampton (UK). So I’m spared of a 30 hour trip to tropical Samoa and the opportunity to return with some Samoan tattoo’s and a tan… So thanks to David Sear and his team at the University of Southampton with whom I will be collaborating for this project.

I have a long standing interest in tropical islands. Before commencing this research internship I did my first masters internship at WWF Indonesia. For my WWF internship I spent three months in the tropics collecting baseline ecological data on timber companies located in a new reserve in Sumatra. Furthermore, during my bachelor degree, I did a research internship at Naturalis Biodiversity Center investigating the “Correlation between higher altitudes and endemic plant species” in the Malayan archipelago. Our results turned out much better then we hoped for and fingers crossed our article will be accepted soon!

In three weeks I will be starting in the lab in Amsterdam and hopefully in a few months will be able to post an update about my results here.

Tessa

Tropical Botany in Belize: Part 1 – An Introduction

February 12, 2015
nicholasloughlin

Sunrise in Belize (Photograph by Anna Turbelin)

Tropical Botany in Belize
by Nick Loughlin

Getting back to the UK after fieldwork is always jarring and this time is certainly no different, the change from 32°C days walking through the savanna and lowland forests of Belize to the -2°C early mornings walking through snow in Milton Keynes is an abrupt transition. I have recently returned from a 2 week field course in tropical botany run by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) in conjunction with their MSc course on the ‘Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants’. The field course allowed for 10 NERC funded PhD students in relevant fields to accompany the MSc students out to Belize to learn a host of valuable skills in tropical botany and ecology. During our time in Belize we visited 2 main locations, Las Cuevas Research Station within the Chiquibul forest reserve and the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area (RBCMA), in my next two posts I will briefly cover the places we visited and the botany we learned.

A very small selection of the plants we sampled and identified during the course (Photographs by Anna Turbelin and Nick Loughlin)

Before I get going I would just like to thank all of the staff from the RBGE who led the field course, (David, Louis, Tiina, Becky, Chris and Helen) their ability to teach the major characteristics of 70+ tropical families to many of us who are not botanists or taxonomists in an engaging way was astounding, although I don’t believe I will ever be able to identify a Euphorbiaceae from its vegetative characteristics. Also thanks to the students from the MSc course who were great fun, if any of you move away from botany and taxonomy and want more of an idea about the world of tropical palaeoecology, give me a shout.

On our way to see the Mayan ruins at Xunantunich (Photograph by Anna Turbelin)

Ecology of the past 2014

January 4, 2015
WDG

William shortly after first Dutch haircut

2014 has seen more people visit this blog and more “clicks” through to articles than in any previous year (see Annual Report 2014). So thanks for reading! I hope that the information provided is useful. For me 2014 has been a big year of change; with the largest work related change being taking up my new post at the University of Amsterdam in September.

2015 promises to be an exciting year with a number of key projects generating exciting findings (including chironomid climate for the Neotropics, Andean flank evolution, and ‘deep time’ palynomorphs) , the start of the XPERT network, and new proposals and collaborations being developed here in the Netherlands (including new proposal to work in Europe!).

Any comments, thoughts or contributions on the blog welcome.

William

Assistant Professor Palaeoecology

November 18, 2014
WDG

Vacancy: Assistant Professor Palaeoecology
(5-year tenure track)

Palaeoecology & Landscape Ecology
Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics
University of Amsterdam

Closing data: 14 December 2014
Interviews: January 2015

We are looking for an ecologist with experience and interest in long timescales specifically related to one, or more, of the following research areas:

the Quaternary (last 2.6 million years);
sedimentary archives;
application and interpretation of proxy indicators (physical, biological and/or geochemical);
novel proxy development;
numerical/statistical methods in ecology.

For full details on the position and how to apply click here.
For informal discussion of the position please contact William Gosling.

Current research within the P&L group focuses on examining past environmental change in lake sediments (Yanacocha, Peru)

Current research within the P&L group focuses on examining past environmental change in lake sediments (Photo: Yanacocha, Peru)

The Palynology Specialist Group Meeting

November 6, 2014
WDG

The Palynology Specialist Group Meeting
13th November 2014
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BF, UK

Program

Phillip Jardine 10:30 – 10:55
Recovering sporopollenin chemical information from processed palynological samples

Luke Mander 10:55 – 11:20
On the taxonomic resolution of pollen and spore records of Earth’s vegetation.

Hugh Dickinson 11:20 – 11:45
Asymmetry in pollen mitosis 1; how does it work and is it important

Mark Grosvenor 11:45 – 12:10
Human-landscape interactions during the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Cumbria

Guy Harrington 12:10 – 12:35
The fate of pollen in soils in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM): The terrestrial response to global warming

– Lunch (not provided) at various locations around Burlington House –

Barry Lomax 14:00 — 14:25
Episodic perturbations of end Permian atmosphere recorded in plant spore chemistry

Matthew Pound 14:25 – 14:50
Global vegetation record indicates no atmospheric pCO2 decline at the Eocene-Oligocene transition

Peter Mark 14:50 – 15:15
The effect of heat stress on wheat pollen development: a multi-faceted approach to a better understanding of a potentially serious issue

Sam Salter 15:15 – 1540
Micro vs. Mega: A quantitative comparison of dispersed spores/pollen and plant megafossil assemblages from a Middle Jurassic plant bed from Yorkshire, UK.

– Tea in Linnean Society Library –

Carina Hoorn 16:00 — 16:25
Evidence of past marine conditions in Amazonia

Wes Fraser 16:25 – 16:50
Towards a unified cross-taxa sporopollenin composition

Organisms and environments: Frontiers in palaeoecological technique development

October 16, 2014
WDG

XIX INQUA Congress
NAGOYA, JAPAN 27 July－2 August, 2015

Grass pollen from Lake Bosumwti picked for individual chemical analysis

Abstract submission is now open for the XIX International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) Congress. “Ecology of the past” researchers will be there and are hosting a special session, entitled Organisms and environments: Frontiers in palaeoecological technique development, at which we hope to bring together a wide range of palaeoecologists working on novel proxy development. Members of the “Ecology of the past” group will be showcasing recent findings on the environmental significance of pollen chemistry change through time; linked to the 500,000 years of solar irradiance, climate and vegetation change in tropical West Africa project (Fraser et al., 2014). Please take a look at our session and consider submitting YOUR abstract today!

For information on abstract submission click here. Closing date for abstract submission 20 December 2014.

For further information on our session click here, or “Continue reading” below…

What’s happening to the cloud forest?

June 17, 2014
WDG

Ecology of the past contributor Nick Loughlin recently won second place as the “peoples choice” in The Open University research student poster competition.

To see other competition entries click here.

Insects, sediment and climate change

Frazer Bird and William Gosling talk about how to conduct palaeoecological research in the tropics for NERC’s Planet Earth pod-cast. Click here to here to listen to the conversation.

For other similar stories online visit the Planet Earth website.

African ecology in context

May 14, 2014
WDG

I am delighted to be organizing a focus session at the first AfQUA meeting. The session seeks to bring together ecologists and palaeoecologists working in Africa. If you are interested in getting involved please contact me (William Gosling) directly. For further information on the conference visit the AfQUA website or twitter feed.

Focus session 1: African ecology in context
The African continent spans over 80 degrees of latitude, nearly 6000 m of altitude and around 30 million km2 consequently it contains a vast array of unique ecosystems. Many of the African ecosystems are under direct pressure from human activity and are threatened by on-going and projected climate change. However, management and conservation of the modern African ecosystems is hampered by a paucity of data on their natural history. Studies of observations of ecosystems spanning >30 years are rare so we are heavily reliant on examination of the fossil record to place modern ecology in a long-term (>50 year) context. Information on past ecosystems can be extracted through the examination of a range of biological indicators (e.g. pollen, carbon isotopes, charcoal) found within marine and lake sediments. However, interpretation of the sediments and the proxies they contain with the ecosystems observed today is challenging because of timescale and interpretation issues. The aim of this session is to bring together modern ecologists and paleo-ecologists working in Africa to present the state-of-the-art understanding of ecosystems past and present, and explore how we can improve understanding of timescales and proxy interpretation to place these threatened ecosystems in context.

BES Tropical Ecology Meeting

April 23, 2014
WDG

The 7th Early Career Research meeting 2014

The University of York, August 14th and 15th 2014

Tropical ecosystems – from process to policy

Keynote speakers:

Professor Jane Hill
Professor Jon Lovett

After six successful meetings, the legendary BES-TEG Early Career Research Meeting returns. Day one will focus on Ecology and Ecosystem Processes, while day two will focus on Practical Applications and links to Policy such as conservation, livelihood, policy and development.

All early-career researchers, both PhD and Post-Docs, are welcome to present their tropical ecology related research with a poster and/or oral presentation. There shall be a competition for both with prizes. This event will take place at Derwent College (D/L//047) and the accommodation at Alcuin College (see map link below).