A5058394439- Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
- Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Plant Diversity and Evolution
- Fish biology, ecology, and behavior
- Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Aquatic Ecosystems and Phytoplankton Dynamics
- Fire effects on ecosystems
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Diatoms and Algae Research
- Freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and ecology
- Cassava research and cyanide
- Indigenous Health and Education
- Maritime and Coastal Archaeology
- Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Agricultural and Food Sciences
- Water Quality and Pollution Assessment
- Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Plant and animal studies
- Rural Development and Agriculture
- Landslides and related hazards
University of Amsterdam
2021-2024
Florida Institute of Technology
2016-2021
An estimated 90 to 95% of Indigenous people in Amazonia died after European contact. This population collapse is postulated have caused decreases atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at around 1610 CE, as a result wave land abandonment the wake disease, slavery, and warfare, whereby attendant reversion forest substantially increased terrestrial sequestration. On basis 39 Amazonian fossil pollen records, we show that there was no synchronous reforestation event associated with such an...
Humans have been present in Amazonia throughout the Holocene, with earliest archaeological sites dating to 12 000 years ago. The inhabitants began managing landscapes through fire and plant domestication, but total extent of vegetation modification remains relatively unknown. Here, we compile palaeoecological records from lake sediments containing charcoal pollen analyses understand how human land-use affected during early mid-Holocene, place our results context previous work. We identified...
Abstract Aim Pollen assemblages are commonly used to reconstruct past climates yet have not been human activities, including deforestation. We aim assess (i) how pollen vary across biogeographic and environmental gradients, (ii) the source area of from lake sediment samples (iii) which taxa can best be quantify deforested landscapes. Location Amazonia. Taxon Plantae. Methods ( N = 65) mud‐water interface (representing modern conditions) cores were compared with gradients temperature,...
Background Fire is known to affect forest biodiversity, carbon storage, and public health today; however, comparable fire histories from across regions in Amazonia are lacking. Consequently, the degree which past fires could have preconditioned modern resilience remains unknown.Aim We characterised long-term (multi-millennial) history of forests determine spatial temporal differences regimes.Methods collated standardised all available charcoal data extracted continuously deposited lake...
Global warming during the Last Glacial Termination was interrupted by millennial-scale cool intervals such as Younger Dryas and Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR). Although these events are well characterized at high latitudes, their impacts low latitudes less known. We present high-resolution temperature hydroclimate records from tropical Andes spanning past ~16,800 y using organic geochemical proxies applied to a sediment core Laguna Llaviucu, Ecuador. Our record aligns with western Amazon...
In 2017, an excavation led by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and in collaboration with Tor Vergata University Rome, took place on two small islands Caprolace lagoon (Sabaudia, Italy), where Middle Bronze Age layers had previously been reported. Combining results environmental reconstruction surroundings a detailed study pottery assemblages, we were able to trace specialised area southern island, all probability devoted salt production means briquetage technique. The latter basically...
The ecosystem services and immense biodiversity of Amazon rainforests are threatened by deforestation forest degradation. A key goal modern archaeology paleoecology in Amazonia is to establish the extent duration past disturbance humans. Fossil phytoliths an established proxy identify lake sedimentary soil archives. What not known, spatial scale such disturbances when identified phytoliths. Here we use phytolith assemblages detect local-scale openings, provide estimate extent, consider...
Societal Impact Statement Global climate models that incorporate carbon sources and sinks usually consider forest uptake of is in a state equilibrium. Both historical paleoecological records suggest this commonly not the case for Amazonia. Here, impacts colonial practices on Amazonian Indigenous peoples forests are reviewed. Human activities affect forests' successional stages, trajectories, species composition. By increasing spatial coverage focus pre‐ post‐Columbian periods, long‐term...
Abstract Aim Ongoing and future anthropogenic climate change poses one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, affecting species distributions ecological interactions. In Amazon, climatic changes are expected induce warming, disrupt precipitation patterns particular concern, increase intensity frequency droughts. Yet response ecosystems intense warm, dry events is not well understood. Andes mid‐Holocene event (MHDE), c. 9,000 4,000 years ago, was warmest driest period last 100,000 which...
Abstract Little is known about whether changes in lake ecosystem structure over the past 150 years are unprecedented when considering longer timescales. Similarly, research linking environmental stressors to ecological resilience has traditionally focused on a few sentinel sites, hindering study of spatially synchronous across large areas. Here, we studied signatures paleolimnological by tracking change diatom community composition last 2000 four Ecuadorian Andean lakes with contrasting...
Tropical forests are changing in composition and productivity, probably response to changes climate disturbances. The responses these multiple environmental drivers, the mechanisms underlying changes, remain largely unknown. Here, we use a functional trait approach on timescales of 10,000 years assess how disturbances influence community-mean adult height, leaf area, seed mass, wood density for eight lowland highland forest landscapes. To do so, combine data fossil pollen records with traits...
We present a 12,6700-yr limnological history of Lake Miski, high-elevation lake in wet section the Peruvian Andes. While many shallow Andean lakes dried up during mid-Holocene, loss-on-ignition, magnetic susceptibility, and diatom analysis showed that Miski was constant feature landscape. Overall, fluctuations fossil communities tracked changes insolation, but this not only mechanism influencing observed variability. identify periods when insolation interactions with Pacific Ocean may have...
Abstract: Aim in this paper we investigated how spatial factors and seasonal dynamics influenced the diatom community a tropical deep environment of low productivity waters Brazil. Methods used physical chemical characteristics water planktonic diatoms from 9 sampling stations during dry (austral winter) wet summer) seasons (N = 18) as outline to identify quality, patterns. To evaluate spatially temporally integrated events recent past (approximately last 5 years before sampling), species...
Past land use, particularly fire, affects modern tropical forests. Charcoal from lake sediments is commonly used to estimate past fire parameters such as burn severity and frequency, but intensity also plays a major role in shaping vegetation change. has remained elusive using common paleoecological approaches. We present new approach reconstruct (pyrolysis) temperature, metric of intensity, reveal how human use changed shaped biodiverse Andean montane forests over the last 2100 years....
Fire has been a part of Earth system processes for millions years, and its use accelerated once hominins humans entered landscapes. Charcoal amounts, usually measured by the number particles or surface area per sample, are used to reconstruct aspects fire history in sedimentary records. Freeze drying is commonly performed on sediment cores soils that will undergo geochemical analysis, process known affect outcomes. We compared charcoal abundances paired freeze-dried non-freeze-dried samples...
The Little Ice Age (LIA - A.D. 1400 to 1820, 550 130 cal yr BP) was a significant worldwide climatic fluctuation, yet little is known about its impact on the ecology of Amazonia or human inhabitants. Using organic geochemistry and diatoms, we investigate limnological this event in an Amazonian record spanning last 760 years. sedimentary from Lake Pata (Lagoa da Pata), which lies Hill Six Lakes (Morro dos Seis Lagos), wettest section western Brazilian Amazonia. We found that many diatom taxa...