INQUA Fellowship Award: Alfred Houngnon

December 20, 2023
WDG

I am delighted to be able to report that Alfred Houngnon (University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin) has been awarded an INQUA Fellowship for 2024 to develop his research into past environmental change in the Dahomey Gap. This research will link up my laboratory, at the Institute of Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam), and the group of Dr Mireille S.S. Toyi (Laboratory of Applied Ecology, University of Abomey-Calavi). Below, and in the associated video report, Alfred explains the project and what he hopes to achieve during the project.

The Dahomey Gap project is designed to gain new insights on the West African palaeoenvironments using pollen, charcoal and dung fungal spore records to reconstruct past vegetation, fire and animal abundances. These empirical data will then be compared against paleoclimate models. Specifically, we will explore the interactions between fire, animals and vegetation around the Ewe-Adakplame forest in the south east of Benin Republic and highlight the role humans would have previously played in the modification of the landscape for millennia.

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PhD Thesis: Morphometrics of modern and fossil Poaceae pollen from South America

December 19, 2023
WDG

On November 17, 2023, Caixia Wei (魏彩霞) accomplished a pivotal milestone by successfully defending her thesis titled “Morphometrics of Modern and Fossil Poaceae Pollen from South America” at the distinguished Agnietenkapel (University of Amsterdam). During the defense ceremony, Caixia showcased her professional knowledge and expertise in the field of paleoecology in a relaxed and cheerful manner. The committee members, promoters (Carina Hoorn, William Gosling, Phillip Jardine), and attendees (~50 people) responded with frequent smiles, laughter, and numerous rounds of applause! After the defense, a delightful reception and dinner were held, where Caixia was showered with an abundance of hugs, kisses, heartfelt wishes, and thoughtful gifts. These wonderful memories will support Caixia on her journey ahead…

For a glimpse into the event, you can watch Caixia’s insightful 10-minute project presentation here:

Additionally, most of Caixia’s thesis is available for download at this link:

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New funding opportunity for African researchers

November 8, 2023
WDG

A new funding stream is about to open up (1 December 2023) to support African scientists to carry out PhD research at Dutch universities. The GROW research programme (Graduate Research on Worldwide Challenges) will fund 51 PhD positions to be based at one of five Dutch universities, including with the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics, at the University of Amsterdam.

To find out more click here.

Applications open 1 December 2023 and close 31 January 2024.

Palaeoecology course 2023

September 6, 2023
WDG

The pollen and phytolith identification quiz! Is that an Asteraceae phytolith I see…???

The University of Amsterdam “Palaeoecology” course commenced this week with lectures getting students up to speed with the fundamental principles and approaches to the subject, and laboratory practicals training students in the identification of micro- and macro-fossils. Once students have gained a basic understanding of pollen and phytolith identification – and demonstrated this by passing the ‘dreaded’ identification quiz – it is time to commence the group project work.

This year the students are trying to identify from which study site their ‘mystery slides’ come from on the basis of the micro-fossil assemblages (pollen and phytoliths) that they contain. The study sites all come from the area around Hilversum (Netherlands) and (could) include: heathland, pine forest, mix-deciduous forest, and birch woodlands. In addition, just to make it more interesting, one group has samples taken from the medieval palaeosol that is found locally.

Next week is field work week and the students will then need to parameterise the vegetation around the Hilversum area in such a way that they: (i) get a representative sample the variation across the landscape, and (ii) can compare the vegetation data with their micro-fossil data. Then, following the number crunching in the third week of the course, we will find out if the different groups can identify the correct study site from which there samples came…

The Palaeoecology course at the University of Amsterdam is part of the BSc Biology program, it is also frequently taken by students on the BSc Future Planet Studies degree. We also welcome students from other programs, such as BSc Béta-Gamma, and international exchange students.

European Conference of Tropical Ecology (2024)

August 30, 2023
WDG

The Society for Tropical Ecology‘s 7th European Conference of Tropical Ecology will be hosted by the University of Lisbon in 2024. Entitled “Tropical ecosystems in a fast-changing planet” the conference will take place from Monday 12 to Friday 16 February 2024. The call for sessions is now open (deadline 7 September 2023). So add the date of the congress to your diary and submit your exciting ideas for a session now…

For more details visit the conference web pages here.

Job: PhD in Caribbean Palaeoecology

August 29, 2023
WDG

The Palaeoecology Research Group within the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany is pleased to announce a new vacancy for a Doctoral student exploring long-term human-environment interactions in the Caribbean. The position will be for a period of 3 years with the option for extensions based in Jena, Germany and supervised by Dr. Yoshi Maezumi. The position will be linked with the Department of Ecosystem & Landscape Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam.
Deadline: 30 August 2023

For full details on how to apply click here.

Mapping Ancient Africa: Rome workshop

July 14, 2023
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa workshop took place at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome on the 12 and 13 July 2023. Participants engaged with two different approaches to palaeoclimate modelling:

  • Interfacing palaeoclimate models through the “pastclim” R package. Lead by Michela Leonardi.
  • Reconstrucing palaeclimate on the basis of ancient pollen data using the CREST program. Lead by Manu Chevalier.

The aim of the workshop was to promote interaction between scientists working across Africa and across disciplines (palaeoclimate, palaeoecology, archaeology, modelling). The plenary session was joined by participants who could not make it to Italy via Zoom. This session was recorded and you can watch it below. In the plenary session outputs from the workshop, the planned special issue of Quaternary International, and the future of the Mapping Ancient Africa project were discussed.

To find out more about the workshop click here.

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“Plant Ecology & Diversity” & Biogeography

July 6, 2023
WDG

Plant Ecology & Diversity

A recent open letter to Wiley from Associate Editors working for the Journal of Biogeography posted by Lucie Zinger and others highlighted a dispute between the editors and the publishers in relation to: (i) the proposed switch of the journal to a pure open access model, (ii) financial barriers to publication, (iii) the proposed increase in throughput of manuscripts to maximise profits, and (iv) the manuscript referral process (see @LucieZinger, read tweet here, dated 28 June 2023). This got me thinking about these issues in relation to the journal that I am most involved with editing which also published papers related to biogeography; Plant Ecology & Diversity.

Plant Ecology & Diversity is the journal of the Botanical Society of Scotland. It is published in association with Taylor & Francis and any profits are split between the publishers and the academic society. To promote diversity and inclusion among authors the journal has a policy of double blind peer review (and has done for many years). Further, there are no publication fees for authors to publish in this journal, however, this does mean that published papers are behind a pay wall. An “Open Access” option is available to all authors for a fee (hybrid model), although the invited “Grubb Reviews” series is automatically published Open Access. Subject Editors and Associate Editors “work” for the journal gratis (for free) and the love of furthering the field.

If you have manuscripts related to biogeography, and prefer this mode of publishing, then please consider the fit of your paper to Plant Ecology & Diversity and send them our way. Or indeed if you have manuscripts related to one of our other key themes:

  • evolution and systematics,
  • global change and vegetation dynamics,
  • environment and plant functioning, and
  • biotic interactions.

The journal accepts original research articles (c. 7000 words), rapid communications (c. 2500 words), review articles (c. 12,000 words), and perspectives (c. 2500 words). Other options for publishing are of course also available 🙂

Mapping Ancient Africa: INQUA Rome session

July 3, 2023
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) project has a double session of talks and a poster session at the INQUA congress in Rome 2023. Our session will be on Wednesday 19 July.

If you are at the INQUA Rome congress please come along to our talks and posters in Session 64: Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, Vegetation & Humans.

Part 1: 08:30-10:30

  • Giosan et al. When the desert was a lake: Providing context for Homo sapiens development in the northern Kalahari
  • Chase et al. Paleolakes and socioecological implications of glacial “greening” of the South African interior
  • Biddulph et al. Spatiotemporal variability in the initiation and development of peatlands across the central Congo Basin
  • Blinkhorn et al. Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa
  • Aureli et al. Homo sapiens behaviour and adaptation in East Africa. New evidence from an open-air site in a modern Ethiopian savannah environment: the GOT10 site
  • Dembele Climatic fluctuations during the last millenium and their impact on political history and human settlements in West Africa
  • Porchier et al. Annually resolved hydroclimate variability in the East African Rift Valley at a time critical for hominin dispersion
  • Effiom et al. Late Holocene palaeoecological studies at Lake St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal

Part 2: 11:00-13:00

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