November 22, 2022
Open access:
McMichael, C.N.H., Vink, V., Heijink, B.M., Witteveen, N.H., Piperno, D.R., Gosling, W.D. & Bush, M.B. (2022) Ecological legacies of past fire and human activity in a Panamanian forest. Plants, People, Planet. DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10344
May 5, 2022
Gosling, W.D., Miller, C.S., Shanahan, T.M., Holden, P.B., Overpeck, J.T. & van Langevelde, F. (2022) A stronger role for long-term moisture change than for CO2 in determining tropical woody vegetation change. Science 376, 653-656. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg4618
To access this article FREE through the Science author referral service click here.
For more on the palaeoecological dataset underpinning this research check out the PhD thesis of Charlotte Miller by clicking here or here.
March 10, 2022
Maezumi, S.Y., Elliott, S., Robinson, M., Betancourt, C.J., Gregorio de Souza, J., Alves, D., Grosvenor, M., Hilbert, L., Urrego, D.H., Gosling, W.D. & Iriarte, J. (2022) Legacies of Indigenous land use and cultural burning in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest ecotone. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377, 20200499. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0499
March 8, 2022
Bush, M.B., Rozas-Davila, A., Raczka, M., Nascimento, M., Valencia, B., Sales, R.K., McMichael, C.N.H. & Gosling, W.D. (2022) A palaeoecological perspective on the transformation of the tropical Andes by early human activity. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 377, 20200497. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0497
December 20, 2021
#Openaccess #Teameffort
Gosling WD, Maezumi SY, Heijink BM, Nascimento MN, Raczka MF, van der Sande MT, Bush MB, McMichael CNH. 2021. Scarce fire activity in north and north-western Amazonian forests during the last 10,000 years. Plant Ecology & Diversity. DOI: 10.1080/17550874.2021.2008040
December 2, 2021
The recently published volume of the Palaeoecology of Africa series contains a number of different types of papers: research articles, reviews, perspectives and data papers. One of the key reasons I was motivated to become involved in the project was to help mobilise palaeoecological data from Africa towards open access datasets (African Pollen Database, Neotoma). To hopefully get greater recognition to the great work done over the years and to help facilitate synthetic work that will provide a greater understanding of spatial variance in past climate change. Ultimately, four short data papers were included in the volume: an enhanced c. 16,000 year pollen record from the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia (Gil-Romera et al. 2021), two pollen and charcoal record from the southern Cape Coast in South Africa, c. 3200 and 650 years long respectively (du Plessis et al. 2021a; du Plessis et al. 2021b), and a c. 700 year long record from Madagascar (Razanatsoa et al. 2021). The records provide new insights in to landscape scale environmental change driven by both humans and climate. To find out more check out the open access articles and the data at:
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November 17, 2021
I am delighted to announce the publication of the new volume in the Palaeoecology of Africa series. I had the privilege to guest edit this with Anne-Marie Lézine and Louis Scott. The final version is now available OPEN ACCESS online.
Gosling, W.D., Lézine, A.-M. & Scott, L., eds. (2021) Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics: The African Pollen Database. Series editor: Runge, J. Palaeoecology of Africa: Volume 35. CRC Press. ISBN: 9780367755089 DOI: 10.1201/9781003162766
Download supporting online material here.
August 2, 2021
Maezumi SY, Gosling WD, Kirschner J, Chevalier M, Cornelissen HL, Heinecke T, McMichael CNH. 2021. A modern analogue matching approach to characterize fire temperatures and plant species from charcoal. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 578:110580. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110580
May 7, 2021
The Plant Conservation Unit (University of Cape Town, South Africa) recently suffered a significantly when the building in which it was housed was ignited by a wildfire. A fund raiser has been initiated by Dr. Lynne Quick on behalf of the Southern African Society for Quaternary Research (SASQUA).
To find out more and donate to the fund please visit: https://www.backabuddy.co.za/rebuild-the-pcu.
News article: Fire causes loss of the Plant Conservation Unit offices and photographic collections.
March 25, 2021
Open access:
McMichael, C., Witteveen, N.H., Scholz, S., Zwier, M., Prins, M.A., Lougheed, B.C., Mothes, P. & Gosling, W.D. (2021) 30,000 years of landscape and vegetation dynamics in a mid-elevation Andean valley. Quaternary Science Reviews 258, 106866.
Ecology of the past 