July 24, 2020
Online:
van der Sande, M.T., Bush, M.B., Urrego, D.H., Silman, M., Farfan-Rios, W., García Cabrera, K., Shenkin, A., Malhi, Y., McMichael, C.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2020) Modern pollen rain predicts shifts in plant trait composition but not plant diversity along the Andes-Amazon elevational gradient. Journal of Vegetation Science DOI: 10.1111/jvs.12925.
October 18, 2019
Date: 18th of October 2019
Location: Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics, Science Park Amsterdam
Organisers: Dr. Carina Hoorn and Dr. Crystal McMichael (University of Amsterdam)
Programme
14:00-14:10 WELCOME & OPENING
15:30-16:00: TEA
17:00: DRINKS
For full details visit the Treub web site here.
February 20, 2018
Open access:
Montoya, E., Keen, H.F., Luzuriaga, C.X. & Gosling, W.D. (2018) Long-term vegetation dynamics in a megadiverse hotspot: The Ice-Age record of a pre-montane forest of central Ecuador. Frontiers in Plant Science 9, 196. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00196
October 10, 2017
Online, open access:
Gosling, W.D., Julier, A.C.M., Adu-Bredu, S., Djagbletey, G.D., Fraser, W.T., Jardine, P.E., Lomax, B.H., Malhi, Y., Manu, E.A., Mayle, F.E. & Moore, S. (2017) Pollen-vegetation richness and diversity relationships in the tropics. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. DOI: 10.1007/s00334-017-0642-y
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
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.
Open access online:
Matthews-Bird, F., Gosling, W.D., Coe, A.L., Bush, M., Mayle, F.E., Axford, Y. & Brooks, S.J. (2015) Environmental controls on the distribution and diversity of lentic Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) across an altitudinal gradient in tropical South America. Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.1833
Brown, J.H. (2014) Why are there so many species in the tropics? Journal of Biogeography 41, 8-22. DOI: 10.1111/jbi.12228
Matamoro-Vidal, A., Prieu, C., Furness, C.A., Albert, B. & Gouyon, P. (2016) Evolutionary stasis in pollen morphogenesis due to natural selection. New Phytologist 209, 376-394. DOI: 10.1111/nph.13578
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, 141. DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00141
ter Steege, H. et al. (2015) Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species. Science Advances 1. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500936
June 29, 2015
By Milan Teunissen van Manen
MSc Biological Sciences, University of Amsterdam.
As part of my MSc research project on Early-Miocene paleodiversity shifts due to marine incursions in the Amazon basin, I recorded and photographed large numbers of palynomorphs. The database consists of a set of images (Teunissen van Manen, 2015a) that I took with my smartphone (bundled in pdfs for sharing purposes) and an Excel overview file (Teunissen van Manen, 2015b) where each of the entries is described. Some of the entries are well documented taxa (C’mon, who hasn’t heard of Zonocostites ramonae and Mauritidites franciscoi before?) while others are “types” that are not formally described – mainly because in Amazonian sediments new, unseen palynomorphs pop up all the time. Indeed, this was the reason why I started the database in the first place: I was merely trying to keep up with the vast diversity that I encountered during sample counting.
Seeing the added value of having a digital record of the palynological diversity from the Amazon basin samples, my project supervisor, Carina Hoorn (UvA), encouraged me to publish the database online so others could also access it. I’d like to invite you to take a look. I hope it can maybe help you with identifying taxa or, who knows, linking taxa across the Amazon basin… if you do, please let me know!
…or maybe it will have you rejoice in the huge diversity and alien beauty of pollen morphology, just as it rejoiced me as I was working through my (seemingly endless) samples.
REFERENCES
Teunissen van Manen, Milan (2015a): Miocene Amazonian Palynological Diversity – Image files. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1396453
Teunissen van Manen, Milan (2015b): Miocene Amazonian palynological diversity database – Entries record. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1396562
This project was conducted with Research Group of Palaeoecology & Landscape Ecology, part of the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics.
Ecology of the past 