Author: Suzette Flantua

Workshop (April-´23) on how to calculate rate of compositional change using R-Ratepol package

On Wed April 26, with Ondřej Mottl we guided a workshop on how to use the new R-package called R-Ratepol to calculate rate of compositional change of your fossil pollen record. Our audience was mostly from the African Pollen Database community but equally useful for those around Latin America.

During almost two hours, we went through the basics of calculating rate of change and how R-Ratepol works. Check out the recording here: LINK

We prepared material that you can easily follow to do it yourself here: LINK

If you interested in more or have question, please check the R-Ratepol website and our publication led by Ondřej Mottl here (send us a direct message if you wish to receive the pdf).

FOSSILPOL workflow and R-package – easy handling and processing of fossil pollen datasets

We are thrilled to announce the public release of #FOSSILPOL, an open-source software and R-package, designed to compile large-scale fossil pollen datasets for multi-proxy analysis at various scales.

FOSSILPOL is designed to create comprehensive, standardized datasets ready for multi-record and multi-proxy analyses, making it ideal for macroecology and palaeoecology research.

Our workflow is designed to make data preparation easy and accessible for everyone, regardless of your coding skills. #FOSSILPOL interacts with users throughout the process, guiding you towards the desired dataset for analysis!

Check out our website and open access publication. (there is also an appendix with more information!)

We aim to do #FOSSILPOL workshops the coming years but more updates on that will follow. We will offer workshops with combined english/spanish support for questions and comments.

!

Meet the Ph.D. characterizing the western flank of the Ecuadorian Andes.

Milan Teunissen van Manen (twitter: @MilanaTvM) is currently working to characterize the northwestern flank of the Ecuadorian Andes by its pollen assemblage, among other proxies.

The aim of her project is to make a multi-proxy modern reference database which will facilitate reconstructing the understudied western flank of the Ecuadorian Andes. She is currently working on 17 sites spread over the Pichincha province that are part of the scientific efforts of Consorcio para el Desarollo Sostenible de la Ecorregión Andina (CONDESAN). Her results on the modern pollen assemblage are expected summer 2018.

14th International Palynological Congress

The 14th International Palynological Congress and 10th International Organisation of Palaeobotany Conference will take place in Salvador, capital of Bahia State, Brazil, from 23-28 October 2016. The main theme is “Palaeobotany and Palynology: towards new frontiers”. There will be a session proposed by the PAGES’ LandCover k working group called: “Pollen-based Holocene land-cover reconstructions for climate modelling.”

For more information on the sessions and the venue go to:
http://www.ipciopcbrazil.com/sessions/

 

Workshop at the 14th International Palynological Congress

PAGES’ LandCover6k working group is conducting a workshop, titled “Pollen-based reconstructions of past land-cover change in Latin America” from 29-31 October 2016 in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The workshop consists of lectures and practical classes during which we will introduce the techniques necessary for quantitative land cover reconstruction. Registration deadline: until free places are filled. Check the following website for more information:
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/541023.html

 

Ph.D. in paleoenvironmental change of Holocene sea level and climate change in eastern Cuba.

There is funding to recruit a Ph.D. student to undertake a paleoenvironmental investigation of Holocene sea level and climate change in eastern Cuba. The research will form a critical component of a larger inter-disciplinary project focused on better understanding prehistoric environmental-human interactions in the Caribbean, including questions to do with human migrations and early agriculture. The Ph.D. research will involve fieldwork in Cuba along with an analysis of proxy indicators such as pollen, micro-charcoal, and non-pollen palynomorphs, possibly in conjunction with XRF core scanning. The funding package will consist of $18,000CND/year, of which $9000/yr will be a stipend and $9000/yr will involve providing technical assistance in the laboratory for 7 to 8 hours/week. Ideally the candidate would begin in September 2016 or January 2017.
The Ph.D. candidate will be based at and working out of Bishop’s University (located in Sherbrooke, Québec), but will be enrolled in a Ph.D. program at a university elsewhere in the region. The laboratory the candidate would be joining at Bishop’s is newly built and contains a range of analytical and field equipment. More information on the laboratory can be found at: http://www.envirolab.ubishops.ca/home.html

Interested individuals should email an updated copy of their CV, an unofficial copy of their university transcripts, and the names of two referees to mperos@ubishops.ca as soon as they can.

Posted by Matthew Peros, Canada Research Chair in Climate and Environmental Change and Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Studies and Geography
Bishop’s University

Email: mperos@ubishops.ca

Workshop Climate and Landscape Change in the Pantanal: Assessing environmental vulnerabilities and future water security in Brazil’s wetland wilderness

Date & Place: 20 -24 July 2016 in Brasilia, Brazil

Under the Researcher Links scheme offered within the Newton Fund, the British Council. Researcher Links scheme we will be holding a workshop on the above theme in Brasilia on 20 – 24 July, 2016. The workshop is being coordinated by Prof. Carlos Saito (University of Brasilia) and Dr. Bronwen Whitney (Northumbria University Newcastle), and will have contributions from other leading researchers from the UK and Brazil. We are now inviting Early Career Researchers (defined as having up to10 years post-PhD research experience) from the UK or Brazil to apply to attend this workshop. All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by the Newton Researcher Links programme.

Workshop themes include:

  1. climate change and water security;
  2. hydrology and flood pulse;
  3. tourism and environmental impacts;
  4. invasive species and impacts on biodiversity;
  5. modelling climate-landscape dynamics;
  6. socioenvironmental conflicts;
  7. the role of environmental education.

Follow the following link to apply as soon as possible! Deadline is 26th of May! LINK: Newton Fund Researcher Links Workshop

NEW DEADLINE 14th International Palynological Congress 2016, Brazil

Date: 23-28 October 2016

You still have a chance to submit your abstract! A new deadline was set for the 22nd of May. Please follow the following link for more information: http://pastglobalchanges.org/calendar/all-events/127-pages/1573-14th-international-palynological-congress

TIP!:
Submit your abstract to the LandCover6k session at http://www.ipciopcbrazil.com/
SS23 – Pollen-based Holocene land-cover reconstructions for climate modelling – PAGES LandCover6k. Organizers: Marie-José Gaillard, Sonia Fontana, Ralph Fyfe, Konrad Gajewski, Ulrika Herschuh, Anupama Krishnamurthy, Anne-Marie Lézine, Rob Marchant, Jack Williams & Qinghai Xu

Open access radiocarbon database available for Easter Island

A new dataset called EIRA (Easter Island Radiocarbon Ages) has been recently presented by V. Rull in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (Front. Ecol. Evol., 26 April 2016). The EIRA database contains all the radiocarbon ages from Aroi, Kao, and Raraku sediments published to date (1984–2015) and can be freely accessed at NOAA !

As described by the author in this paper: “The EIRA database provides paleoecologists and paleoclimatologists with a thorough chronological dataset to be analyzed statistically as a whole or by parts (by sites, by age intervals, etc.), aimed at contributing to the development of new age-depth models, reconsider the existing ones, or plan new studies and coring campaigns“. Thank you to the author for this open source database!

Summer School – Early Career Researcher – “Using observations and modelling to understand past climate changes”

University of Reading | 5th-9th September 2016

This 5 day residential event at the University of Reading aims to bring together young researchers from the palaeo­observational and climate­ modelling communities and show how their skills can complement each other.

The conference will provide participants with the ability to use modelling tools and palaeo-observations to understand the dynamics of past climate changes. Participants will also present their own work through oral and poster presentations and will have a chance to network with their peers at social events.

For more information check the website: INQUA ECR 2016

Exploring the LAPD in Google Earth

The newest overview of palynological research in Latin America comes now with an interactive feature. Data can be visualized and even downloaded by the reader. This feature is within the paper displayed in a Google Maps interactive map. It allows to reader to access the paper’s geographic data in an easy way. By downloading the data and opening it in Google Earth, the readers can extend its interactive experience and zoom into their area of interest.

Check the paper: Flantua, S.G.A., Hooghiemstra, H., Grimm, E.C., Behling, H., Bush, M.B., González-Arango, C., Gosling, W.D., Ledru, M.-P., Lozano-García, S., Maldonado, A., Prieto, A.R., Rull, V., Van Boxel, J.H., 2015. 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

Very old palynological diversity database from the Amazon – Open access!

As part of her Master thesis, Milan Teunissen van Manen, from the Institute for Biodiversity & Ecosystem Dynamics – University of Amsterdam, recorded and photographed large numbers of palynomorphs from the Amazon (Miocene period) and made it available in figshare!

Check this link out to retrieve the data-set: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1396453

And also this other link: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1396562

LAPD inventory presented at European conference of tropical ecology, Göttingen, February 23-26, 2016

An abstract for a poster was accepted for the European conference of Tropical Ecology, this year in Göttingen, Germany.
Title: OVERVIEW OF QUATERNARY POLLEN RECORDS IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH
AMERICA, CARIBBEAN AND MEXICO
Authors: Suzette G.A. Flantua, Henry Hooghiemstra, Eric C. Grimm, Hermann Behling, Mark B. Bush, Catalina González-Arango, William D. Gosling, Marie-Pierre Ledru, Socorro Lozano-García, Antonio Maldonado, Aldo R. Prieto, Valentí Rull, John Van Boxel.

Abstract: For over a decade the general impression of research on past and present pollen– vegetation relationships has been incomplete in most of the Neotropics. Continentalscale synoptic studies often missed out on the vast majority of potentially available studies and data. Here we present an inventory of palaeoecological research in Central and South America, Caribbean and México, in terms of pollen records and modern rain samples. With a set of maps, we show that there are over 1400 cores and sections with palaeoecological data and more than 4800 modern samples. Some biomes and regions have a relatively high research density while the scarcity at others offer opportunities for future research. An increasing number of records are sustained by geochronological control points for age modelling, and multi-proxy studies are taking the lead over single proxy publications. This compilation of research shows the numerous innovative topics currently being explored to increase our understanding of palaeoenvironmental settings and modern vegetation-pollen relationships. To impulse divulgation and collaboration, we present the newly developed website and interactive map interface, where this inventory and corresponding reference database is publically available. Researchers and students are invited to pinpoint their new studies and publications, making interactive use of this platform for increased detectability and awareness on available publications.

More info on the event can be found at: http://gtoe-2016.de/

New PAGES working group launched relevant for Latin America: LandCover6k

The goal of PAGES’ new LandCover6k Working Group is to achieve Holocene landcover
and land-use reconstructions that can be used to evaluate and improve the scenarios
of anthropogenic land-cover change (ALCC ) by Klein Goldewijk et al. (2011; HYDE) and Kaplan et al. (2009; KK) for the purpose of climate modeling studies (Gaillard et al.
2015). LandCover6k focuses on the last 6000 calendar years, i.e. the period in the Holocene when anthropogenic deforestation occurred in most continents, but it will also cover older periods in regions where significant human impact on vegetation occurred earlier.

Check for more information: PAGES Magazine Vol. 23, No.23, pp. 81, December 2015.
Check the website: www.pages-igbp.org/ini/wg/landcover6k/

Quaternary palaeoecology: Reconstructing past environments workshop 23Nov-4Dec 2015

From the 23rd of November to the 4th of December 2015, a workshop was held at San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina. This workshop was designed for postgraduate students and young scientists based in Latin-American institutions, undertaking research in palaeoecology, with emphasis on microfossil analysis: e.g. pollen, charcoal, plant macrofossil remains, ostracods, diatoms, other. It aimed to provide (1) an outline of the principles, methods and applications of selected proxies; (2) an overview of methods and software use for data analyses; and (3) an overview of spatial and evolutionary responses of organisms to different Quaternary driving forces, providing insight into general questions of species survival, spread and biodiversity.

Participants presented a poster related to their research projects, including an abstract which is published online in http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/488293.html

PAGES LandCover6k at the International Palynological Congress in Brazil

The PAGES LandCover6k group will have a session at the International Palynological Congress in Brasil in October 2016 called:

SS23 – Pollen-based Holocene land-cover reconstructions for climate modelling.

Organizers: Marie-José Gaillard, Sonia Fontana, Ralph Fyfe, Konrad Gajewski, Ulrika Herschuh, Anupama Krishnamurthy, Anne-Marie Lézine, Rob Marchant, Jack Williams & Qinghai Xu.

You can submit an abstract on your research at http://www.ipciopcbrazil.com/sessions/
SESSION DESCRIPTION

Adequate incorporation of land cover in global and regional climate models is still one of the major priorities in the climate modeling community. The scenarios of past ALCC, e.g. HYDE (Klein Goldewijk et al. 2011), KK (Kaplan et al. 2009) used as descriptions of ALCC in climate modelling, show very large differences (Gaillard et al. 2010). LandCover6k is a PAGES working group that addresses land-cover change during the last ca. 10000 cal. years across the globe for the purpose of climate modelling studies (http://www.pages-igbp.org/ini/wg/landcover6k/intro). LandCover6k brings together palaeoecologists, historians, archaeologists, and modelers to explore and provide new information about ALCC and create products suitable to study land-use change as one of the human-induced climate forcings. This session invites contributions on pollen-based reconstructions of past land-cover characteristics useful for climate modelling (in conjunction with archaeological and historical data if available) at the regional to global spatial scales.

Hot Papers

Every two months we list a new crop of what is called “Hot papers”. These papers are selected by virtue of their topic addressed, journal published, or scientific advancement. Here the new ones for this month!

. Siegel, P. E., Jones, J. G., Pearsall, D. M., Dunning, N. P., Farrell, P., Duncan, N. A., Curtis, J. H. and Singh, S. K.: Paleoenvironmental evidence for first human colonization of the eastern Caribbean, Quaternary Science Reviews, 129, 275–295, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.10.014, 2015.

. Spalding, B. B. da C. and Lorscheitter, M. L.: Dry and humid phases in the highlands of southern Brazil during the last 34,000 years, and their influence on the paleoenvironments of the region, Quaternary International, 377, 102–111, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.057, 2015.

. Peros, M., Gregory, B., Matos, F., Reinhardt, E. and Desloges, J.: Late-Holocene record of lagoon evolution, climate change, and hurricane activity from southeastern Cuba, The Holocene, 25(9), 1483–1497, doi:10.1177/0959683615585844, 2015.

Would you like to announce your brand new paper? Let us know here that your paper is out!

Open access paper on LAPD now available

After a long awaiting, the authors of this new paper are very pleased to present the new site compilation of the Latin American Pollen Database.

This open access paper presents an overview of palynological research from the last decades in Central and South America, Caribbean and Mexico.

The hot topics, research questions and of course the current spatial coverage of pollen records.

The paper is even accompanied by an interactive map viewer where the reader can download the dataset presented in the paper.

Follow this link to start reading! http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034666715001773

LOTRED-SA – Long-Term climate Reconstruction and Dynamics of South America. Pages2k Network

This Special Issue will contain a selection of papers presented at the 3rd International LOTRED-SA Symposium held in Medellin, Colombia, in July 2014. LOTRED-SA (Long-Term climate REconstruction and Dynamics of South America) is a working group of Past Global Changes (PAGES) to study regional climate change over the last 2000 years.

The Special Issue highlights advancements in the development and application of high-resolution paleoclimate records in Central and South America, with an emphasis on paleoclimate reconstruction and modeling of the tropical regions. The tropics had been underexplored in previous LOTRED-SA special issues (Masiokas et al. (eds), Climate of the Past, 2012, http://www.clim-past.net/special_issue42.html ; Villalba et al., 2010, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 281, 2009)

Website: http://www.pages-igbp.org/ini/wg/lotred-sa/intro

Neotoma Database Paleocological Workshop

Date: Dec 11-13 2015

Location: AGU Fall Meeting 2015, San Francisco, USA

Objectives:
– Bring members of the Neotoma Community together to meet & socialize
– Showcase & review database, analysis and visualization developments
– Learn about current Community activities
– Get Community feedback on development priorities, policy & governance.
– Establish priorities and outline next steps.