July 31, 2013
Water resources in the Vacas region (near Cochabamba, Bolivia) deminished around the time of the founding of the urban centre at Tiawanaku
Gosling, W.D. & Williams, J.J. (2013) Ecosystem service provision sets the pace for pre-Hispanic societal development in the central Andes. The Holocene, 23(11): 1617-1622. doi: 10.1177/0959683613496296
Click here to download an open access version of this manuscript via The Open University Open Reseach Online repository.
July 17, 2013
Trecking with sediment corer in the high Andes of Peru
When it comes to collecting sediments from lakes its all about having the right tools for the job. Working in remote areas of the tropics we tend to favour the Colinvaux-Vohnout corer; supplied by Vince Vohnout at Geo-core). The advantages of this system are:
Eric Martinez carrying an Avon Redstart back out from Laguna Khomer Kotcha (Williams et al., 2011a)
With the right platform (two banana boats and an A-frame) we have manged to retrive c. 20 m of sediment from 20 m of water (c. 40 m of drill rod extended); Lake Pacucha, Peru (Hillyer et al., 2009). More typically we use two Avon Redstart inflatables and a platform following the design of Colinvaux et al. (1999).
Recent debate on the International Paleolimnology Association list server saw recommendations for a number of other systems.
Including: UWITECH gravity corer, Pylonex gravity corer, Aquatic Research Instrument products, and modified systems by Jason Curtis at University of Florida.
I would be interested if anyone has any thoughts on the relative merits of these systems (or others) and there capabilities.
Photos and references below:
February 15, 2013
Bush, M.B. & Gosling, W.D. (2012) Environmental change in the humid tropics and monsoonal regions. The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change (ed. by J.A. Matthews, P.J. Bartlein, K.R. Briffa, A.G. Dawson, A. De Vernal, T. Denham, S.C. Fritz and F. Oldfield), pp. 113-140. SAGE, London.
Mosblech, N.A.S., Bush, M.B., Gosling, W.D., Hodell, D., Thomas, L., Van Calsteren, P., Correa-Metrio, A., Valencia, B.G., Curtis, J. & Van Woesik, R. (2012) North Atlantic forcing of Amazonian precipitation during the last ice age. Nature Geoscience, 5, 817-820
Williams, J.J., Brooks, S.J. & Gosling, W.D. (2012) Response of chironomids to late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change in the eastern Bolivian Andes. Journal of Paleolimnology, 48, 485-501
February 15, 2013
Bush, M.B., Hansen, B.C.S., Rodbell, D.T., Seltzer, G.O., Young, K.R., Leon, B., Abbott, M.B., Silman, M.R. & Gosling, W.D. (2005) A 17,000-year history of Andean climate and vegetation change from Laguna de Chochos, Peru. Journal of Quaternary Science, 20, 703-714
Gosling, W.D. & Bush, M.B. (2005) A biogeographic comment on Wüster et al. (2005): Tracing an invasion: Landbridges, refugia, and the phylogeography of the neotropical rattlesnake (serpentes: Viperidae: Crotalus durissus). Molecular Ecology, 14, 3615-3617
Gosling, W.D., Mayle, F.E., Tate, N.J. & Killeen, T. (2005) Modern pollen-rain characteristics of tall terra firme moist evergreen forest, southern Amazonia. Quaternary Research, 64, 284-297
Hanselman, J.A., Gosling, W.D., Ralph, G.M. & Bush, M.B. (2005) Contrasting histories of MIS 5e and the Holocene from Lake Titicaca (Bolivia/Peru). Journal of Quaternary Science, 20, 663-670
February 12, 2013
K.H. Roucoux, I.T. Lawson, T.D. Jones, T.R. Baker, E.N. Honorio Coronado, W.D. Gosling, O. Lahteenoja (2013) Vegetation development in an Amazonian peatland Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 374: 242-255. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2013.01.023
January 9, 2013
Two NERC algorithm funded PhD studentships are currently available with the PCRG. The projects are focused on understanding past environmental change in west tropical Africa and Amazonian-Andean Ecuador. Both projects will involve field work and build on on-going research within the lab.
Closing date 31/01/2013
One project will work on samples collected during fieldwork in 2012 near Papallacta (Ecuador).
Further project details and how to apply below…
Continue Reading
August 2, 2012
I whish I could start with “ Once upon a time…” because that would be the easiest way to begin this paragraph (or a paper). Besides, to some extend, “Once upon a time” can be appropriate because this is a story related to the OLD friends of the Paddington Bear. By that, I mean a story about the mega fauna in South America.
Macrauchenia drawn by Kobrina Olga (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
July 4, 2012
I am delighted to report that Dr Encarnacion Montoya Romo (currently of the Botanical Institute of Barcelona) has been awarded a NERC Fellowship to join the PCRG. The project is entitled “Evaluation of tropical forests sensitivity to past climate change” (FORSENS) and will examine environmental change at four study sites from different regions of the Neotropics: 1) Khomer Kotcha (Bolivia; 17oS, 4100 m above sea level [asl]) [1-3], 2) Consuelo (Peru, 13oS; 1400 m asl) [4-5], 3) Banos (Ecuador; 0oS, 4000 m asl), and 4) a new lowland site from Columbia/Ecuador to be collected during field work during the project.
The aim of the project is to explore the spatial and temporal consitance of tropical vegetation response to aridity (mid-Holocene dry period) and warming (last deglaciation). The project will use fossil pollen, chironomids, charcoal, non pollen palynomorphs and organic biomarkersto build up a comprehnsive picture of environmental change. The diversity of the project means we have a number of exciting partners, including: Steve Brooks (Natural History Museum), Prof. Mark Bush (Florida Tech), Prof. Valenti Rull (Botanical Institute of Barcelona) and the Dr. Pauline Gulliver (NERC radicarbon facility).
The fellowship will commence in October 2012. Further information will appear on is blog and group website soon.
REFERENCES
Continue Reading
May 31, 2012
Time seemed to escape me in April so I have a lot of research group action to report in this post! Here are some highlights…
At The Open University (OU) the research students have all been busy (of course): Natalie presented her 3rd year talk at the CEPSAR student conference and attended a meeting in Durham, Lottie spent two weeks at University College London (Environmental Change Research Centre) learning to become a statistics guru studying the “Numerical Analysis of Biological and Environmental Data” course, while Hayley and Frazer have been writing up their first year probation reports ahead of their mini-vivas next month. Over in Florida Bryan submitted his first PhD paper and has headed off on field work in Peru; and most significantly… I am very pleased to report that Nikki successfully defended her PhD thesis! Congratulations Nikki!
Thinking of PhD I was also pleased to have the opportunity to welcome my PhD supervisor, Frank Mayle, to The OU to give a CEPSAR seminar last week. It was great to be able to show off the labs to Frank at last having promised to invite him down when I arrived at The OU in 2005! He gave a very interesting talk on new archaeological findings from beneath the rain-forest in the Amazon Basin.
Away from The OU a couple of weeks ago I was down at Charles Darwin House for the British Ecological Society meetings committee meeting! We were working on the program for the annual meeting in Birmingham during December this year and it is shaping up to be a very exciting event; keep up to date by following the BES on twitter (@BritishEcolSoc).
Ecology of the past 