Category Archives: Outreach

Brain’s pick: European Conference of Tropical Ecology

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Here I want to share what my brain grabbed and maintained the most from the conference I attended last week in Germany.

 

First to mention is that I had a great time at the European Conference of Tropical Ecology. There was a great selection of fantastic talks, really good quality research, and outstanding projects.

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At the Opening Ceremony, Gottingen University, and plenary talk with Professor Richard Corlett

There was a full-day session in paleoecology which I thought was well rounded covering topics such as ‘Ecological baselines for the high Andes’ with William Gosling, ‘Long-term dynamics of Amazonian rainforest and wetland ecosystems and the role of climate, sea-level, fire and human impact’ with Prof Hermann Behling, ‘Phytolith signatures along a gradient of ancient human disturbance in western Amazonia’ with Crystal MicMichael, and ‘History of geographical parthenogenesis of Neotropical Ostracoda using fossil and molecular data – a consequence of climate fluctuations?’ with Sergio Cohuo.

 

My contribution in this conference was talking about the preliminary findings of the Je Project in an oral presentation entitled ‘Araucaria forest, human land use, and climate change linkages in southern Brazil during the late Holocene’, which was well received and commented.

 

 

Other talks that stand out for me were:

Yadvinder Mahi(University of Oxford), gave a plenary talk on ‘New insights into the metabolism and carbon cycle of tropical forests from a global network of intensive ‘, where he showed some surprising outcomes from their project with GEM (Global  Ecosystem Monitoring Network ). GEM is massive network that measures productivity and gas flux within forest of the Amazon, Africa and Asia. I totally recommend to look at their webpage to look at what they are doing (for example: outstanding results come from Chiquitania in Bolivia)

 

Professor Susan Page (University of Leicester)gave a plenary talk on ‘Swamped! The trials and tribulations of tropical peatland science’: where she shared controversial information regarding management of peats from Indonesia, and the raw reality. A fantastic example of how we can use research for a common good.

 

Minnattallah Boutros a former researcher in conservation, now a business owner, brought another, feared topic to the conference, ‘Bridging the gap – Biodiversity conservation in the frameworks of research and development cooperation’, where she shared her knowledge in how to bring money to do research in ecology and conservation. She seemed to know very well what she was talking about, a great eye opener.

 

Kyle Dexter (University of Edinburg) gave a great presentation on ‘Patterns of dominance in tree communities vary across the major biomes’ and he highlighted how there are hyperdominant taxa, this time also including the Matta Atlantica (finally someone is talking about other biomes other than the Amazon!)

 

 

Other thoughts

Trends. It was very interesting to see stronger trends of research in ecology. A strong current seem to be appearing about Ecuadorian Amazon and Andean vegetation. There was a large session entitled “Developing sustainable land use and functional monitoring systems for the Ecuadorian Andes to cope with environmental change effects” where interesting research was shown. Other strong focus was towards wetlands and their role in carbon cycling, a whole session was on “Tropical wetland ecology”.

 

Staying connected. If there is something that always stands out of the conferences is that I take the most at seeing and talking to people from my field that I wouldn’t normally. Here is the most fun. Talking about projects and getting to know future plans are equally important (specially so you don’t step out in each other’s toes!).

 

Food. Not a minor topic for me (apparently I am a foodie). A delightful surprise from the organisation was to find out fantastic buffet at the Conference reception in the first night, accompanied with a live band that played from jazz, to modern rock. The snacks at coffee breaks were also delightful with selection of food even for vegan-gluten free people, finally!

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Snacks at coffee break… fresh fruit and nuts. Why nobody thought about this before?!

 

Well done to the organisation committee, and everyone attending.

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The band at the reception with a very keen academic

Looking forward to other conferences!

By Macarena

 

TPR in a Chilean School

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San Ignacio School (Colegio), Source La Tercera

Our lab made presence in South America during late December 2015, specifically in Santiago of Chile. This was a visit during which I had the opportunity to be at the facilities of San Ignacio School and enjoyed using one of the microscopes in their large teaching laboratory with wooden tops (it was like being back to school!).

On the other hand I took the opportunity to share some knowledge about our research and the world of pollen. I had a great conversation with Mr Luis Lara and Miss Carolina Guerrero (photo below), both responsible at the Sciences Department of the School. TPR donated samples of pollen reference collection of key taxon with some fun morphologies that they will use for future botany classes and highlight the amazing world of cells.

Thanks to Colegio San Ignacio for opening the doors for me and special thanks to Luis and Carolina that made me feel like at home.

 

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Luis and Carolina at the San Ignacio School’s laboratory

 

About San Ignacio School:

San Ignacio School (Colegio) is one of the top schools of Chile. Every year San Ignacio’s graduates get national score in the test to enter the University, best scores include in tests in the area of science.

 

By Macarena

 

 

Swapping Amazon fieldwork stories with Sir Ghillean Prance

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Front of the Kew Millennium Seed Bank (courtesy of Frank Mayle)

 

On 26th October I gave a talk at Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank at their symposium entitled ‘Amazing Amazon – seed biology and the bio-economics of native species’.  While there I had the great privilege of fulfilling a long-term ambition of mine – to finally meet Sir Ghillean Prance – the world-renowned expert on Amazonian botany.  Over a rack of ribs and a few pints at a local village pub I really enjoyed chatting with him about our respective fieldtrip adventures in the Amazon over the years.  I was also delighted to receive a signed copy of his latest book ‘That Glorious Forest’ where Ghillean regales us with his field expeditions in the Amazon, dating back to his first trip in 1963!  Great bedtime reading for me at the moment.

 

by Frank Mayle 

 

Antarctic temperatures, tropical research: Presenting at the QRA postgraduate conference

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Between the 2nd and 4th of September, Heather and I attended the 2015 QRA Postgraduate Symposium at the University of Cambridge. As this was a conference only for PhD students, we saw this as a great opportunity to go and present for the first time in a relaxed environment and in front of a friendly crowd!

On the first day we had a guided tour of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) headquarters. These headquarters contain research facilities, laboratories, mapping facilities, geological stores and offices that support the research activities that BAS carry out in Antartica. We saw their marine biological research aquarium, where marine creatures are kept and studied after being bought back from Antartica. The logistics of transporting these creatures made getting samples back from the Amazon seem easy! We visited their mapping department, who produce bespoke maps for the Antarctic region. The researchers on field visits are dependent on these maps, especially the pilots of the aircraft that transport people and equipment across the region to various research stations and outposts. We then nearly froze to death after visiting one of their ice core laboratories! Finally, we saw their geology store where they have thousands of rocks and fossils. Overall, it was fascinating to see the work being carried out in a different field of research to our own – though I think I’m glad of getting to work in the 30-40˚C heat of the Amazon rather than the -20˚C of Antartica! In the evening, we had an ice breaker at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. It was quite novel to be eating and drinking wine in the company of some dinosaur skeletons.

The second day saw the start of the main conference. The conference was split into 5 sessions: 1. Ice Cores/Antartica, 2. Ocean Circulation, 3. Palaeoclimate reconstruction of UK/Ireland, 4. Palaeoclimate reconstruction of Eurasia, and 5. Palaeoclimate reconstructions of equatorial regions. We heard some really interesting talks on a wide range of topics such as reconstructing ocean circulations over 1.5 million years, reconstructing postglacial landscapes, looking at climatic impact of anthropogenic land use change, and many more! Mine and Heather’s talks were in the last session, so we had to wait till late afternoon on the second day. Although our projects are quite similar, I felt we successfully gave two complimentary presentations (and I don’t think the audience were too bored after hearing about the Amazon twice in a row!). Heather also got 2nd place in the ‘best presentation’ prize which was great!

 

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Richard at the conference talking about future climate predictions

 

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Heather talking at the conference about her sites in the Bolivian Amazon

Overall, it was a great conference to attend. It was the first time we had presented at a conference and the relaxed atmosphere made the whole experience much less stressful than it could have been. Everybody was very friendly and it’s always nice to hear about the interesting research that people are doing.

 

By Richard Smith

Anthropology, Weather & Climate Change Conference

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THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF AFRICA,

OCEANIA AND THE AMERICAS OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

RAI

27-29 May 2016

 

Aimed to understand past vegetation and its interaction with human, our group was moved to propose a panel in this conference where multiple disciplines of research as well as the private sector could come together to discuss about the environment-human relationship.

 

About the panel:

 

 Indigenous populations-vegetation-climate relationship in the past: what can this teach us about sustainable vegetation use in the present? (P31)

 

 

This panel invites multiple research disciplines and concerned private and public sectors to share evidence and discuss how knowledge of past climate change and past land use by indigenous cultures help us to understand what affects the vegetation and how this information can be used to protect it.

To know more about the conference, click here

Or contact us for more information about this panel

 

 

Panel abstract:

Threats of climate change and expanding human urbanisation makes the future of worldwide vegetation uncertain. Increasing demands of land for the growing global human population adds pressure to people and governments to protect the remaining native vegetation. Nevertheless, are the large efforts of protecting what seems to be the last places of “pristine” vegetation adequate or enough?

 

Understanding the impact of different factors in changing the vegetation is crucial for their protection. Although modelling is becoming a valid methodology to determine the main factors involved in vegetational change, it is still not specific enough to account for individual communities. Specific information of how the vegetation responds to climate change and human impact can be found in palaeoecological, palaeoclimatic and archaeological studies; these studies give us clues to how the vegetation responds to main factors from millennial to centennial time scales. Combining these disciplines we can also help us to understand the role that past human populations had within a specific landscape allow us to evaluate the role that past humans played in shaping the vegetation we see today.

 

Here we propose a discussion amongst archaeologists, palaeoecologists, palaeoeclimatologists, human geographers, anthropologists, policy makers and NGOs to share both evidence and techniques as well to discuss to what extent past cultures and climate modulated the vegetation we see today in areas considered pristine or well preserved. Special emphasis is to evaluate what can be learned about past cultures and their vegetation/landscape use to help land management and conservation today. We expect this discussion to help integrate valuable knowledge and facilitate decision making today in creating, protecting and improving endangered vegetation communities.

 

 

 

 

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Prof Frank Mayle at the Dome

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Amongst the many other activities that our members of TPR do, enlightening young people about the great opportunity of studying environmental sciences is one of them.

Today we found our Principal Investigator Professor Frank Mayle  (photo below) taking part in this important task.

 

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With just some hours left before he goes on field trip Frank is found with hands on flyers and coffee and a large smile at the Dome, University of Reading

 

Open Days are great opportunities for young students that are considering to study with the university and that want to talk to the academics that teach and do research here. They can also find many current students of the university from the various qualifications offered to ask questions related to modules, living in reading, about social life and other activities.

A full-on and sunny day for Frank (who is due to leave to Fieldtrip in Bolivia 2016 in just some hours!)

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The Dome at the University of Reading Open Day

 

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Busy inside the Dome!

 

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Display of flowers and their pollinators at the Dome

 

by Macarena Cardenas

Fascinating Plants

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Fascinating result: Fascination of Plants Day

A total success was the outcome of the fascinating international day event co-organised by our laboratory (School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science (SAGES)) and the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) the on 18th May.

It was a very windy and rainy day, but nothing stopped the team.

FoD_teamThe unstoppable Fascination of Plant event team on the day

 

University staff, undergraduate students, schools with around 130 kids and University of Reading Vice-Chancellor visited the event getting fascinated by the fantastic world of plants.

This was the first time where these two schools worked together to create an event that  came alive after Dr Macarena Cárdenas (SAGES)and Dr Jonathan Mitchley (SBS)  shared their passion for plants. The result of combining knowledge about the past of plants trough the fossil record and the present modern plants happened to be an enlightening experience for who visited the event.

 

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Dr Macarena Cárdenas fascinating students with microscopic samples of fossil pollen

 

JonathanMitchleyDr Jonathan Mitchley un-puzzling students with modern plant material

Keep your senses awake and your eyes on the green as there are plans for more events like this!

 

For more details and information contact:

Dr Macarena Cárdenas m.l.cardenas@reading.ac.uk