On behalf of Manu Chevalier, Anne Dallmeyer, Ulrike Herzschuh, Thomas Hickler, Yoshi Maezumi and Martin Claussen I would like to draw your attention to a special issue of Climate of the Past entitled: “Past vegetation dynamics and their role in past climate changes”. The call for papers for this special issue is now open (closing date: December 2024). See below for full details and how to submit.
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.
We are seeking to recruit an experienced educator and researcher in the field of climate dynamics, linked to Earth system functioning and/or land-surface processes. The position will be tenured, subject to a positive evaluation of your performance during the initial 12-month temporary appointment.
The second in my series highlighting papers in the recent volume of Palaeoecology of Africa (published entirely open access online) focuses on the research articles. The research articles make up the ‘guts’ of the volume, comprising 10 of the 24 papers. Three of these are from western Africa (Dinies et al.; Gosling et al.; Lemonnier & Lézine), two from eastern Africa (Githumbi et al.; Kinyanjui et al.), two from central Africa (Richards; Gaillard et al.), and three from southern Africa (Chevalier et al.; Hill & Finch, Hill et al.). These research articles present new data and key insights into past environmental change in Africa, which fall into two broad categories, providing information on: (i) how we can extract information from pollen data sets, and (ii) the processes operating to drive vegetation.
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
I am pleased to announce the start of a new project “Mapping Ancient Africa” funded by the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) with support from the Palaeoclimate commission (PALCOM) and the Human & Biospheres commission (HABCOM). This project will bring together Quaternary scientists focused on past climates and environments with those working on human evolution and development in Africa. Through the synthesising data and linking these with modelling approaches we hope to bring together a novel group of researchers to explore the climatic and environmental backdrop to hominin development.
Further information on the project can be found on a new “sub-site” within this blog dedicated to the “Mapping Ancient Africa” project. The project is designed to connect researchers working on these topics so if you are interested to be involved please do get in contact. The first meeting will be held in October 2021 online and at four locations: Nairobi (Kenya), Port Elizabeth (South Africa), Potsdam (Germany) and Portland (Oregon, USA) – for further details click here.
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.
Zhang, Y., van Geel, B., Gosling, W.D., McMichael, C.N.H., Jansen, B., Absalah, S., Sun, G. & Wu, X. (2019) Local vegetation patterns of a Neolithic environment at the site of Tianluoshan, China, based on coprolite analysis. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 271, 104101. DOI: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2019.104101
Hagemans, K., Tóth, C.-D., Ormaza, M., Gosling, W.D., Urrego, D.H., León-Yánez, S., Wagner-Cremer, F. & Donders, T.H. (2019) Modern pollen-vegetation relationships along a steep temperature gradient in the Tropical Andes of Ecuador. Quaternary Research online. DOI: 10.1017/qua.2019.4