Drivers of vegetation change in tropical Africa

April 9, 2025
WDG

I was delighted to be invited to give a seminar as part of the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology “Human Palaeo-systems Research Group” series. In case you missed it the seminar is will soon be available to watch online (click here).

To see the full list of seminars in the series click here.

European Conference of Tropical Ecology: Call for abstracts open

October 10, 2024
WDG

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: 23 October 2024. Click here to submit your abstract NOW.

The European Conference of Tropical Ecology will take place in Amsterdam between 24 and 28 February 2025. The event will be centered around thematic oral and poster sessions. There are twenty-three different thematic sessions organized into seven broad topics:

  • Freshwater and marine ecosystems
  • Human-environment interactions
  • Monitoring and modelling
  • Patterns and processes
  • Restoration and conservation
  • Spatial and temporal scales
  • General ecology

For full details on the thematic sessions click here to download our Thematic Session booklet.

Or click here to explore the conference webpages:

Click here to submit your abstract NOW.

Mapping Ancient Africa: INQUA Rome session

July 3, 2023
WDG

The Mapping Ancient Africa (MAA) project has a double session of talks and a poster session at the INQUA congress in Rome 2023. Our session will be on Wednesday 19 July.

If you are at the INQUA Rome congress please come along to our talks and posters in Session 64: Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, Vegetation & Humans.

Part 1: 08:30-10:30

  • Giosan et al. When the desert was a lake: Providing context for Homo sapiens development in the northern Kalahari
  • Chase et al. Paleolakes and socioecological implications of glacial “greening” of the South African interior
  • Biddulph et al. Spatiotemporal variability in the initiation and development of peatlands across the central Congo Basin
  • Blinkhorn et al. Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa
  • Aureli et al. Homo sapiens behaviour and adaptation in East Africa. New evidence from an open-air site in a modern Ethiopian savannah environment: the GOT10 site
  • Dembele Climatic fluctuations during the last millenium and their impact on political history and human settlements in West Africa
  • Porchier et al. Annually resolved hydroclimate variability in the East African Rift Valley at a time critical for hominin dispersion
  • Effiom et al. Late Holocene palaeoecological studies at Lake St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal

Part 2: 11:00-13:00

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Incorporating a palaeo-perspective into Andean montane forest restoration

September 2, 2022
WDG

Open access:

Loughlin, N.J.D., Gosling, W.D., Duivenvoorden, J.F., Cuesta, F., Mothes, P. & Montoya, E. (2022) Incorporating a palaeo-perspective into Andean montane forest restoration. Frontiers in Conservation Science 3, 980728. DOI: 10.3389/fcosc.2022.980728

Mapping Ancient Africa: Video of Seminar 5

April 12, 2022
WDG

The fifth Mapping Ancient African project took place on Monday 11 April 2022 and focused on the African Pollen Database and past vegetation change in Africa.

The seminar was delivered by Sarah Ivory (Penn State University), Rahab Kinyanjui (National Museums of Kenya), and Lynne Quick (Nelson Mandela University). The seminar covers the principles behind and the working of the African Pollen Database (why make data openly available?) and the latest advances in eastern and southern Africa.

For more about the African Pollen Database check out:

You can watch the seminar now on the Ecology of the Past YouTube channel. Seminar details can be found here.

Paleo-ENSO influence on African environments and early modern humans

June 2, 2021
WDG

Kaboth-Bahr S, Gosling WD, Vogelsang R, Bahr A, Scerri EML, Asrat A, Cohen AS, Düsing W, Foerster V, Lamb HF, et al. 2021. Paleo-ENSO influence on African environments and early modern humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(23):e2018277118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2018277118

Job: PhD Palaeoecology & Community Ecology

March 24, 2021
WDG

Mark BushMark Bush is looking to recruit a PhD researcher to the “Neotropical Palaeoecology Research Group” at Florida Institute of Technology.

Applications are invited from qualified and highly-motivated students for an exciting PhD studentship in the areas of paleoecology and community ecology of South American lowland rainforests.

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Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics

January 19, 2021
WDG

Palaeoecology and past environmental research central to the work at the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics (University of Amsterdam); check out the new institute video, spot the palaeoecology researchers, and see what else is going on at IBED:

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