Andes | Ecology of the past

Success for BSc project students

July 18, 2017
WDG

BSc students on the Palaeoecology course prior to undertaking a research project with us.

Many BSc students undertook our “Palaeoecology” course prior to choosing to do a research project with us.

This year 15 (fifteen!) bachelors students completed their research projects in palaeoecology based within the Department of Ecosystem & Landscape Dynamics at the University of Amsterdam. The students had a variety of backgrounds with the majority coming from the BSc Biology and the BSc Future Planet Studies programs.

Each project was set up to test a particular ecological or biogeographic hypothesis. Investigations included the exploration of the role of humans in modifying ecosystems in Amazon, the nature of the pre-farming landscape in the the Netherlands, and how to chemically identify fossil charcoal. In undertaking their projects individual students had the opportunity to variously develop skills in microscopy, spatial modelling, or analytical chemistry. The high quality of the data produced means that hopefully many of these data sets can be used in future scientific publications. Well done to all!

If you are interested in conducting a similar project (at any academic level) with us please do not hesitate to get in contact. For further details of ongoing research within the Department of Ecosystems & Landscape Dynamics visit our web pages by clicking here.

Past climate change seminars

June 15, 2017
WDG

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

Eric Grimm: A high-resolution record of hydrologic variability, vegetation, and fire from the Northern Great Plains, North America
Suzette Flantua: Assembling the biogeographic history of the Northern Andes – A multi-proxy approach
Carina Hoorn: The Amazon at sea: Onset and stages of the Amazon River from a marine record, with special reference to Neogene plant turnover in the drainage basin
Keith Richards: Why did the Arctic seal, Phoca hispida, become land-locked in the Caspian Sea 2.6 million years ago? : Palynology and foraminifera explain how

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.

British Ecological Society annual meeting 2016

December 15, 2016
WDG

The British Ecological Society (BES) annual meeting for 2016 has come to an end. It has seemed like a long week (and it is only Thursday) because it has been so action packed. For me it commenced on Sunday when I helped out with the introduction session for early career researchers (MSc, PhD and post-docs), and the marathon council meeting. I think the length, and intensity, of the council meeting highlighted the need for the structural review that our president, Sue Hartley, has just initiated. The main program commenced on Monday and has been mainly a mix of workshops, posters and talks, with a side order of special interest group meetings, carol singers, and a gala dinner.
I would like to highlight two of the scientific talks that stuck in my head in particular:

Steven Sylvester “Shifting perspectives on natural ecosystems in the high Andes”; showed how remote regions of the high Andes may still contain the vestigaes of ‘pristine’ ecosystems dating from before human arrival, and
Stefano Allesina “Higher-order interactions stabilize dynamics in a generalized rock-paper-scissors game”; showed (theoretically) how ecosystem complexity plays a role in ecosystem stability.

An excellent and exciting meeting was capped for me by my PhD student Nick Loughlin for being awarded the BES Public Engagement award! Well done Nick (@PalaeoNick).

REFERENCES

Sylvester, S.P., Sylvester, M.D.P.V. & Kessler, M. (2014) Inaccessible ledges as refuges for the natural vegetation of the high Andes. Journal of Vegetation Science 25, 1225-1234. DOI: 10.1111/jvs.12176

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

Biodiversity and global change in the tropics

November 7, 2016
WDG

Treub Maatschappij – Society for the Advancement of Research in the Tropics
&
Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED),University of Amsterdam

“Biodiversity and global change in the tropics”

Coordinators: Carina Hoorn & W. Daniel Kissling
Time: Thursday 17 November 2016, 13:30-17:00
Location: University of Amsterdam, Science Park (click here for link to registration)

PROGRAMME Continue Reading

Hall, S.A. (2010) Early maize pollen from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA. Palynology 34, 125-137. DOI: 10.1080/01916121003675746

Janzen, D.H. (1967) Why mountain passes are higher in the tropics. The American Naturalist 101, 233-249. DOI: 10.1086/282487

Tovar, C., Arnillas, C.A., Cuesta, F. & Buytaert, W. (2013) Diverging responses of tropical Andean biomes under future climate conditions. PLoS ONE 8, e63634. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063634

Tropical palynology meeting

July 8, 2016
WDG

The Palynologische Kring (Palynological Association)
Tropical palynology meeting
14 July 2016

Hosted by: Palaeoecology & Landscape Ecology, Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam
Located: Science Park 904
Organised: Carina Hoorn (if you want to attend please contact Carina for further details)

Speakers

14.00-14.30 Suzette Flantua (University of Amsterdam) – Thriving palynological research in Latin America: What has been done and what’s next.
14.30-15.00 Dunia Urrego (University of Exeter, UK)- Tropical and subtropical vegetation dynamics over orbital and millennial timescale
15.00-15.30 Coffee break
15.30-16.00 William Gosling (University of Amsterdam) – Long-term solar and ultraviolet-B irradience detected using sporopollenin chemistry
16.00-16.30 Kim Hagemans (Utrecht University) – High Andean vegetation responses to changes in palaeo-ENSO

Matthews-Bird, F., Brooks, S.J., Holden, P.B., Montoya, E. & Gosling, W.D. (2016) Inferring late-Holocene climate in the Ecuadorian Andes using a chironomid-based temperature inference model. Climate of the Past 12, 1263-1280. DOI: 10.5194/cp-12-1263-2016

Lahr, M.M. et al. (2016) Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 529, 394-398. doi: 10.1038/nature16477

Rademaker, K., Hodgins, G., Moore, K., Zarrillo, S., Miller, C., Bromley, G.R.M., Leach, P., Reid, D.A., Yepez Alvarez, W. & Sandweiss, D.H. (2014) Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes. Science 346, 466-469. doi: 10.1126/science.1258260

da Silva, S.G. & Tehrani, J.J. (2016) Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales. Royal Society Open Science 3. doi: 10.1098/rsos.150645

Veenendaal, E.M. et al. (2015) Structural, physiognomic and above-ground biomass variation in savanna-forest transition zones on three continents – how different are co-occurring savanna and forest formations? Biogeosciences 12, 2927-2951. doi: 10.5194/bg-12-2927-2015

Introducing Milan Teunissen van Manen

February 9, 2016
WDG

My name is Milan Teunissen van Manen and I just finished my first week as a Ph.D. researcher with the Palaeoecology & Landscape Ecology (P&L) group in the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA)!

My undergraduate studies were interdisciplinary in nature: I did a BSc Beta-Gamma (Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS), UvA) where students are taught to collaborate between different disciplines. Ecology has always been an interest of mine, so I was quick to specialize in that field. In my final year of my bachelor I came in contact with paleoecology and did not hesitate to make sure my first master’s project (MSc Biological Science, IBED, UvA) would be with the P&L research group (IBED) – a worked on a project on tropical rainforest dynamics in Miocene Amazonia. After that I got the chance to test my skills outside research institutes: during the Tesla consultancy Minor (IIS) I got firsthand practical experience in developing urban green areas from start to finish for the municipality of Amsterdam. The focus of that project was to increase the ecologic, educational, scientific, and social value of the natural areas on Amsterdam Science Park. It was great to see my scientific background put to good use outside the research community. The project is still active today.

After a short period of working in education and sustainability consultancy I seized the opportunity to, once more, join the P&L research group – this time as a Ph.D. student under the watchful eyes of William Gosling and Boris Jansen. My project revolves around characterizing biomarker and modern pollen-rain signals across the altitude of the Ecuadorian Andes vegetation. A great opportunity at the frontier of tropical research!

If the first week is any indication, I foresee to a lot of collaboration, hard work, exploration and adventure in the coming years!

To find out more about me visit: