An undergraduate eye-view of an Andean lake-coring expedition

August 23, 2017
WDG

Part 1: Huayabamba
by Molly Kingston (a BSc Biological Sciences student at Florida Institute of Technology, taking part in an expedition lead by Prof. Mark Bush)

When I first heard about this class in Peru, I had no idea that I was going to experience so much in such a short period. Our goal was to visit two lakes in Peru and raise sediment cores for paleoecology. The first lake that we went to was Laguna Huayabamba, which sits at about 3250 m elevation in the La Libertad region of the Peruvian Andes.

However, getting to this lake was no easy task. Before the hike even started, we had to obtain the necessary permits and permission from the local people. After several days of visiting different town officials and waiting for approval, we could set out on our adventure.

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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

bes_new_logo_2016The 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:

  1. 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
  2. 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.

Nick-thumbAn 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

PalykringThe 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

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