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.
Exciting new edition of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) magazine focused on the sustainability of Earth’s biodiversity. Includes articles by Ecology of the Past blog contributors Dr. Encarni Montoya and Dr. Macarena Cardenas.
To find out more check out the full issue (free):
Gillson, L., Gell, P. & von Gunten, L. (2017) Past Global Changes Magazine: Sustaining the Earth’s Biodiversity 25(2): 76-130. DOI: 10.22498/pages.25.2
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…
An international team of scientists have reconstructed the longest ever record of past sunshine using pollen trapped in lake sediments collected in Ghana, Africa. The study published today in Scientific Reports enables us to understand past changes in solar input to the global system over the past 140,000 years. Previously we have had to rely upon computer models to mathematically determine past solar inputs to the Earth. “This work really is a first; being able to peer back in time to understand how the Sun has driven our global system over many of thousands of years is a very exciting prospect” said joint-lead author Dr. Phillip Jardine of The Open University.
The Sun is a key component of our natural environment, driving a multitude of processes at Earth’s surface, from photosynthesis generating energy within plants, through to global-scale circulation patterns in our oceans and atmosphere. Understanding more about how the Sun has behaved in the past, and the influence this had on Earth’s environment, will help scientists predict future climate change.
Dr. Jardine used a technique pioneered by one of his co-authors, Dr. Wesley Fraser of Oxford Brookes University, to determine past changes in solar input, specifically changes in ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Plants protect themselves from the harmful nature of ultraviolet radiation by incorporating a number of specific chemical compounds into their tissues that absorb and dissipate the energy of UV radiation. Pollen grains of flowering plants are also provided protection by these UV-absorbing chemicals, thus act as a long-term recorder of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
Pollen grains are readily trapped in lake sediments, where they can be preserved for millions of years. By extracting material from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, the pollen that was released by flowering plants thousands of years ago can be separated from the lake sediment and chemically analysed for UV-absorbing chemical compounds. It is this chemical signature within the ancient pollen grains that provides us with information about past levels of solar ultraviolet radiation.
“What we present here is a new opportunity to explore how the Earth has changed” said Dr. William Gosling (University of Amsterdam). “I am particularly excited about this because it will means that we can gain a better understanding of why vegetation changed in the past, and consequently this will allow us to anticipate better what the likely impacts of projected future climate change will be.”
Jardine PE, Fraser WT, Lomax BH, Sephton MA, Shanahan TM, Miller CS & Gosling WD (2016) Pollen and spores as biological recorders of past ultraviolet irradiance. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep39269
Online:
Cuesta, F., Muriel, P., Llambí, L.D., Halloy, S., Aguirre, N., Beck, S., Carilla, J., Meneses, R.I., Cuello, S., Grau, A., Gámez, L.E., Irazábal, J., Jácome, J., Jaramillo, R., Ramírez, L., Samaniego, N., Suárez-Duque, D., Thompson, N., Tupayachi, A., Viñas, P., Yager, K., Becerra, M.T., Pauli, H. & Gosling, W.D. (2016) Latitudinal and altitudinal patterns of plant community diversity on mountain summits across the tropical Andes. Ecography. DOI: 10.1111/ecog.02567
Published open access:
Julier, A.C.M., Jardine, P.E., Coe, A.L., Gosling, W.D., Lomax, B.H. & Fraser, W.T. (2016) Chemotaxonomy as a tool for interpreting the cryptic diversity of Poaceae pollen. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 235, 140-147. DOI: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2016.08.004
OPEN ACCESS ONLINE:
Miller, C.S., Gosling, W.D., Kemp, D.B., Coe, A.L. & Gilmour, I. (2016) Drivers of ecosystem and climate change in tropical West Africa over the past ∼540 000 years. Journal of Quaternary Science online. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.2893
Ecology of the past 