Holocene | Ecology of the past

Tribute to Daniel Livingstone and Paul Colinvaux

January 26, 2018
WDG

Mark Bush and I are proud to announce that a tribute to Prof. Daniel Livingston and Prof. Paul Colinvaux has recently been published in Quaternary Research. Dan and Paul were both pioneers of tropical pal(a)eoecology and both died in the spring of 2016 . To mark their passing Mark and I have guest edited ten new papers on palaeoecology drawn from researchers, and regions, of the tropics in which Dan and Paul worked (Bush & Gosling, 2018). We would like to thank Quaternary Research Senior Editor Derek Booth for giving us this opportunity and assisting greatly in the process of compiling the manuscripts. We would also like to thank all to contributing authors for their hard work and dedication to the project. We hope that you will enjoy reading the manuscripts and find them a fitting tribute to the life and work of these two great researchers.

Quaternary Research
Special Issue: Tribute to Daniel Livingstone and Paul Colinvaux
Volume 89 – Special Issue 1 – January 2018 Continue Reading

Evidence of early cultivation around the globe

October 24, 2017
WDG

Two recent articles published in the journal Vegetation History & Archaeobotany, which caught my attention as an Associate Editor, explore early cultivation in Argentina and Czech Republic:

Lopez (2017) examine macro-botanical remains from 16 archaeological sites in Argentina and concludes that the transition from foraging to cultivation commenced around 1000 years ago.
Dreslerová et al. (2017) looked an charred macrofossil remains from 84 archaeological sites in the Czech Republic to think about how early farmers selected the crops they grew.

Vegetation History & Archaeobotany

February 12, 2017
WDG

I am delighted to report that I have recently been appointed as an Associate Editor for the journal Vegetation History & Archaeobotany (VHA). The journals scope is global and covers Quaternary environmental and climatic change, with a specific focus on the Holocene and pre-historic human impacts on landscapes; often linking palaeoecological and archaeological research. My remit with VHA is to provide expertise on tropical, and in particular South American, studies. Recent articles in VHA with a South American focus include:

Assessing the influence of glacial-interglacial climate changes on the dry forest vegetation along the southern edge of Amazonia (Whitney et al., 2014),
The role of fire in modifying Amazonian vegetation (Hermanowski et al., 2015), and
Modern pollen-vegetation relationships in Brazil and Argentina (Rodrigues et al., 2016).

I hope that over the next few years we can publish some more exciting articles on the tropics in VHA and I would therefore like to encourage you to submit interesting high quality original research, reviews, or short articles for our consideration.

To find out more about the journal and submit an article click here.

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

Miller, C.S., Leroy, S.A.G., Collins, P.E.F. & Lahijani, H.A.K. (2016) Late Holocene vegetation and ocean variability in the Gulf of Oman. Quaternary Science Reviews 143, 120-132. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.05.010

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

Quantifying late-Holocene climate in the Ecuadorian Andes using a chironomid-based temperature inference model

January 21, 2016
WDG

Our latest manuscript has just been made available, via Climate of the Past Discussions, for comment and review. Click here to check it out. We look forward to hearing what people think.

Quantifying late-Holocene climate in the Ecuadorian Andes using a chironomid-based temperature inference model
Matthews-Bird, F., Brooks, S.J., Holden, P.B., Montoya, E. & Gosling, W.D.

Abstract below

Published open access:

Hoogakker, B.A.A., Smith, R.S., Singarayer, J.S., Marchant, R., Prentice, I.C., Allen, J.R.M., Anderson, R.S., Bhagwat, S.A., Behling, H., Borisova, O., Bush, M., Correa-Metrio, A., de Vernal, A., Finch, J.M., Frechette, B., Lozano-Garcia, S., Gosling, W.D., Granoszewski, W., Grimm, E.C., Gruger, E., Hanselman, J., Harrison, S.P., Hill, T.R., Huntley, B., Jimenez-Moreno, G., Kershaw, P., Ledru, M.-., Magri, D., McKenzie, M., Muller, U., Nakagawa, T., Novenko, E., Penny, D., Sadori, L., Scott, L., Stevenson, J., Valdes, P.J., Vandergoes, M., Velichko, A., Whitlock, C. & Tzedakis, C. (2016) Terrestrial biosphere changes over the last 120 kyr. Climate of the Past 12, 51-73. DOI: 10.5194/cp-12-51-2016

In the news:

Jonathan Amos (2016) ‘Case is made’ for Anthropogenic Epoch. BBC News: Science & Environment.

Scientific publications:

Sarmiento, F.O. (2002) Anthropogenic change in the landscapes of highland Ecuador. Geographical Review 92, 213-234. doi: 10.1111/j.1931-0846.2002.tb00005.x

Swindles, G.T., Lamentowicz, M., Reczuga, M. & Galloway, J.M. (online) Palaeoecology of testate amoebae in a tropical peatland. European Journal of Protistology. doi: 10.1016/j.ejop.2015.10.002

Tellkamp, M.P. (2014) Habitat change and trade explain the bird assemblage from the La Chimba archaeological site in the northeastern Andes of Ecuador. Ibis 156, 812-825. doi: 10.1111/ibi.12179

Waters, C.N., Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C., Barnosky, A.D., Poirier, C., Galuszka, A., Cearreta, A., Edgeworth, M., Ellis, E.C., Ellis, M., Jeandel, C., Leinfelder, R., McNeill, J.R., Richter, D.d., Steffen, W., Syvitski, J., Vidas, D., Wagreich, M., Williams, M., Zhisheng, A., Grinevald, J., Odada, E., Oreskes, N. & Wolfe, A.P. (2016) The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science 351, . doi: 10.1126/science.aad2622

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