Researching ecosystem change in Amazonia and Africa
Ian Lawson Katy Roucoux, Tim Jones and Ian Lawson visited our project partner Dr Will Gosling at the Open University to discuss the interpretation of our initial pollen data from Quistococha, and to discuss approaches to tropical pollen taxonomy.
Graeme Swindles and Katy Roucoux have been awarded a research grant from the Royal Society. This is the first major grant to be leveraged from the initial NERC project. It will enable Graeme to join the team in Peru in July 2011 where he will be looking at testate amoebae.
Tom was kindly hosted by our friends at the University of Turku, Finland, where he spent time sampling their herbarium collections of ferns. He also gave a presentation about the project to the Amazon Research Team. Tom is making a special study of fern spore taxonomy as part of his PhD research.
A 15-minute documentary about the project, including footage shot on field work, was shown on national television in Peru. You can now watch it here!
Tom will be studying the genesis of palm swamp/lake systems including Quistococha for his PhD.
Tim Jones presented a poster about our NERC project, while Tim Baker, Katy Roucoux and Geertje van der Heijden convened a session on “Understanding the impact of disturbance on plant communities” with invited guest speakers including Prof Hermann Behling (Göttingen) and Prof Frans Bongers (Wageningen).
A team led by Katy Roucoux took sets of cores from three sites: Quistococha, near Iquitos: a Mauritia flexuosa palm swamp encircling a shallow lake (cores were taken from the swamp peats and from the lake) Buena Vista: a tahuampa (seasonally-flooded forest) San Jorge: a forested raised mire As well as taking cores, the team … Read more