Ecology of the past

Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (21/08/2015)

The final working day of the XPERT summer school focused on projects, grants and careers.

Encarni, Carmen and Will

First thing in the morning Encarni Montoya reported the key findings from her NERC funded fellowship project, entitled: Evaluation of tropical forests sensitivity to past climate changes. Her presentation focused on new multi-proxy palaeoecological data from two lakes in Ecuador (high elevation Laguna Banos, and low elevation Laguna Pindo). Based on the palaeoecological proxies Encarni demonstrated the buffering capacity of different ecosystem structures in preventing/mitigating the environmental impacts of volcanic eruptions. Following Encarni, Carmen Luzuriaga (Director of the Pindo Mirador Research Station [PMRS], Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial) presented modern ecological information and conservation efforts in the region of Laguna Pindo. Two key impacts were identified from the dialogue with the PMRS and the project team:

• The proposed opening and dredging of Lake Pindo…

Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (19/08/2015)

Today was proxy meta analysis day! Emiel van Loon took the participants through a number of exercises related to the statistical analysis of palaeoecological data. Much of the day was spent learning about, and experiencing, the challenges of correctly coding data for analysis. It seems to me that the key challenge with the statistical analysis of the data is not the statistical analysis, but working out the method for implementing the statistical analysis.

Erik organising field work (not a BBQ)

After a day of coding in R everyone was ready for a beer, so thankfully tonight was BBQ night! I was dispatched in the afternoon, with Prof. dr. Hooghiemstra, to gather non-meat provisions for the evening, meanwhile Dr. Erik de Boer had organised a grill and meat from a local butcher. By the time I reached the BBQ beer, meat and cucumber…

Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics(18/07/2015)

The second day of the summer school was focused on understanding individual proxies. The day started with introductory talks to five proxies that can be used in palaeo-environmental research:

• Diatoms (Teresa Vegas),
• Pigments (Sarah Metcalfe),
• XRF (Teresa Vegas),
• Charcoal (Crystal McMichael), and
• Biomarkers (Boris Jansen).

Students then broke up into four groups each of which focused on an individual proxy. Working collaboratively and in discussion with staff members each group was faced with a ‘raw’ data set for their proxy which they had to process. Once they had ‘played’ with the data for a while they then had to report back to the entire group.

Where available the groups worked with Lake Erazo data generated from the sediment cores recovered during the field school. After reporting back each groups was asked to make…

Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (17/08/2015)

Most of the XPERT 2015 summer school participants who were coming from abroad arrived in Amsterdam on Saturday and all seem to have found the hotel, and each other, with little problem. Convening in the hotel as a group they arrived together at Science Park 904 just before 09:00 to be met by local students Tom Peters and Valerie van den Bos who guided them to the study room.

The first part of the first day was focused on getting to know each other. Introductions from all students and staff emphasised the diverse range of interests and expertise required to conduct palaeo-environmental research. In particular the introduction talks revealed the importance and range of time scales in palaeo-environemental change; e.g. from evolutionary change over geological time (Jordan Bishop), through high resolution past climate change during the Holocene (Nick Primmer/Elizabet Safont)…