July 20, 2017
Dear Ecology of the past blog readers,
This time you are reading a message from a non-expert in paleoecology. My name is Masha and I will spend the next two years on a very exciting postdoctoral fellowship funded by NWO (Dutch National Science Foundation) under their Rubicon scheme in close collaboration with William Gosling (University of Amsterdam).
July 3, 2017
Seringe Huisman
Hi all! My name is Seringe (Dutch for lilac flower), and unsurprisingly I am a biology student. I completed my BSc Biology at the VU University, specializing in ecology. Being fascinated by tropical rainforest since I was a kid, I attended a Tropical Ecology course at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), resulting in a research project with Crystal McMichael from the Palaeoecology & Landscape Ecology group on the late-Holocene fire history of western Amazonia. Besides performing this palaeoecological project, focusing on the aspect of ancient human activity, I followed courses of Latin America Studies to broaden my perspectives on the current socio-environmental complexity and conservation status of the area. This year, I have gotten the amazing opportunity to join Crystal McMichael on a fieldwork expedition to the Ecuadorian Amazon!
Seringe Huisman in the field…
The fieldwork will be part of my Master’s thesis, elaborating on the regional patterns of vegetation composition changes in relation to human disturbance. I will be taking sediment cores from two lakes in the Sangay region of Ecuador, perform charcoal and phytolith analysis to reconstruct fire and vegetation assemblages over the late Holocene and compare the results to previously established records across western Amazonia. While I am currently attending the MSc Biological Sciences Limnology & Oceanography Master’s track at UvA, I could not help but directing my first project into Paleoecology again! My field trip is largely made possible by obtaining €1150 of grants through the Treub-Maatschappij and the Amsterdam University Fund, for which I am very grateful.
I am super excited to be heading to Ecuador soon, and will be back in a month with field stories, mosquito bites and hopefully some suitable sediments!
Seringe Huisman and palaeoecology friends
June 15, 2017
Palynologische Kring presents four seminars focus on past climate change
Date: Thursday 22 June
Time: Starts 14:10
Location: University of Amsterdam, Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics, Science Park
For percise details of location and time please contact the organiser Prof. dr. Henry Hooghiemstra.
The meeting will be followed by the IBED seminar given by Prof. Jonathan Overpeck, click here for more details.
Salamanca Villegas, S., van Soelen, E.E., Teunissen van Manen, M.L., Flantua, S.G.A., Santos, R.V., Roddaz, M., Dantas, E.L., van Loon, E., Sinninghe Damsté, J.S., Kim, J. & Hoorn, C. (2016) Amazon forest dynamics under changing abiotic conditions in the early Miocene (Colombian Amazonia). Journal of Biogeography online. DOI:
February 26, 2016
European Conference of Tropical Ecology
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
23-26 February 2016
This is my first time attending the European Conference of Tropical Ecology and my second visit to Germany. The conference attracted c. 350 delegates; big enough to have plenty of interesting science, and yet small enough to find everyone you wanted to. The keynote speakers chosen to head the days provided some exciting insights into various new developments across the tropics, including: the importance of biogeography (Richard Corlett), metabolism and carbon cycles (Yadvinder Malhi), diversity and resilience (Lourens Poorter), tropical peatlands (Sue Page), agricultural landscapes (Ravi Prabhu), and mutualism of figs and fig wasps (Martine Hossaert-McKay).
From the many other interesting talks five in particular grabbed my attention, these were:
February 12, 2016
Bush, M.B., de Oliveira, P.E., Raczka, M.F., Gosling, W.D., Mayle, F.E., McMichael, C.H. & Urrego, D.H. (2014) Paleoclimates of Amazonia: An ice-age view. IN: Ribeiro F. & Carvalho, I. (eds.) Paleontologia: Cenários de Vida – Paleoclimas Volume 5. Editora Interciência Ltda., Brazil, pp. 353-368. ISBN: 9788571933439
Cárdenas, M.L., Gosling, W.D., Pennington, R.T., Poole, I., Sherlock, S.C. & Mothes, P. (2014) Forests of the tropical eastern Andean flank during the middle Pleistocene. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 393, 76-89.
Fraser, W.T., Lomax, B.H., Jardine, P.E., Gosling, W.D. & Sephton , M.A. (2014) Pollen and spores as a passive monitor of ultraviolet radiation. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2, Article 12.
Fraser, W.T., Watson, J.S., Sephton, M.A., Lomax, B.H., Harrington, G., Gosling, W.D. & Self, S. (2014) Changes in spore chemistry and appearance with increasing maturity. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 201, 41-46.
Keen, H.F., Gosling, W.D., Hanke, F., Miller, C.S., Montoya, E., Valencia, B.G. & Williams, J.J. (2014) A statistical sub-sampling tool for extracting vegetation community and diversity information from pollen assemblage data. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 408, 48-59
Kennedy, A.E. & Coe, A.L. (2014) Development of the freeze-thaw processing technique for disaggregation of indurated mudrocks and enhanced recovery of calcareous microfossils. Journal of Micropalaeontology, 33, 193-203.
Miller, C.S. (2014) 520,000 years of environmental change in West Africa. PhD Thesis, Department of Environment, Earth & Ecosystems, The Open University.
Miller, C.S. & Gosling, W.D. (2014) Quaternary forest associations in lowland tropical West Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews, 84, 7-25.
Sayer, E.J., Featherstone, H.C. & Gosling, W.D. (2014) Sex & Bugs & Rock n Roll: getting creative about public engagement. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 29, 65-67.
Online, open access:
McMichael, C., Piperno, D., Neves, E., Bush, M., Almeida, F. & Mongelo, G. (2015) Phytolith assemblages along a gradient of ancient human disturbance in western Amazonia. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 3. DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00141
Haffer, J. (1969) Speciation in Amazonian forest birds. Science 165, 131-137. DOI: 10.1126/science.165.3889.131
Mackenzie, G., Boa, A.N., Taboada, A.D., Atkin, S.L. & Sathyapalan, T. (2015) Sporopollenin, the least known yet toughest natural biopolymer. Frontiers in Materials 2. DOI: 10.3389/fmats.2015.00066
Nelson, B.W., Ferreira, C.A.C., da Silva, M.F. & Kawasaki, M.L. (1990) Endemism centers, refugia and botanial collection density in Brazilian Amazonia. Nature 345, 714-716. DOI: 10.1038/345714a0
Souto, C.P., Kitzberger, T., Arbetman, M.P. & Premoli, A.C. (2015) How do cold-sensitive species endure ice ages? Phylogeographic and paleodistribution models of postglacial range expansion of the mesothermic drought-tolerant conifer Austrocedrus chilensis. New Phytologist 208, 960-972. COMMENT: Variation in genetic diversity used to infer the location of glacial refugia.
Open access online:
Flantua, S.G.A., Hooghiemstra, H., Grimm, E.C., Behling, H., Bush, M.B., González-Arango, C., Gosling, W.D., Ledru, M., Lozano-García, S., Maldonado, A., Prieto, A.R., Rull, V. & Van Boxel, J.H. Updated site compilation of the Latin American Pollen Database. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 223, 104-115. DOI: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2015.09.008
October 6, 2015
Whilst conducting her PhD research Hayley Keen helped produced two of short films about her research project Past environmental change on the eastern Andean flank, Ecuador:
First prize in the AGU student video competition (2014)
Three minute thesis (The Open University, 2014)
Follow Hayley’s ongoing research on this blog and on Twitter @Hayley1keen
Ecology of the past 