Alpine environments of Australia

This project is funded by an Early Concept Grant For Exploratory Research (NSF EAGER) award, to test ideas on late-Pleistocene through late-Holocene climate change in southeastern Australia based on multiproxy analyses of sediment cores collected from three alpine tarns (lakes) in the highest portions of the Snowy Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. Despite recent efforts to reconstruct the magnitude and spatial distribution of major post-glacial climate events in the Southern Hemisphere, critical gaps in proxy data, most notably in Australia, hinder these reconstructions; this gap reflects a shortage of sites on the continent that preserve high-resolution, continuous paleoclimate records. The alpine tarns in Kosciuszko National Park (KNP), New South Wales, represent notable exceptions to this problem with the tarns acting as continuous sediment traps since deglaciation 18,000-20,000 years ago.

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Disentangling anthropogenic and environmental change in the Holocene on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, Sichuan and Gansu Province

This project is funded by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (2021-2024). The Tibetan Plateau supplies water and other essential resources to the surrounding lowlands and significantly influences the social and economic development of China. The extensive wetlands on the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau are located at an important transition zone between the Westerlies and the Asian summer monsoon (ASM). However, palaeoenvironmental records from wetlands are spatially and temporally limited, restricting our understanding of the shifting boundary between the Westerlies and ASM during the Holocene.

Human occupation and land use affect vegetation distribution and wetland evolution through time. Human occupation of the Tibetan Plateau has a long history and understanding of when human habitation of the “Third Pole” occurred is a hotly debated topic. However, palaeoenvironmental reconstructions often don’t consider long-term human occupation as a driver of environmental change. Disentangling the effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on the environment is a significant challenge in earth sciences.

Alpine ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climatic and anthropogenic change. This study will collect sediment cores from lakes and wetlands in Maqu and Ruoergui Province to reconstruct climatic variability and landscape evolution during the Holocene. Particle size, fossil pollen, and x-ray fluorescence analysis will reconstruct past environmental changes. This project will identify human occupation using coprophilous fungi and charcoal particles (micro and macro). Molecular biomarkers including branched-GDGTs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) will provide records of both temperature and fire in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau.

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People, Pollution and Pathogens: Mountain ecosystems as sentinels of change

This project is funded by the AXA Research Fund, Belmont Forum, and DFG (2017-ongoing). The P3 project will conduct ecological research and policy-relevant actions on pollution, pathogens, and anthropological impacts in mountain ecosystems, especially at the interface of aquatic and terrestrial habitats and in the socio-ecological system. The research will be conducted in four mountain ranges: the Pyrenees (France), Dhofar Mountains (Oman), Sierra Nevada (USA) and the Great Hinggan Mountain (China). The mountain ranges proposed to be studied in P3 are on different continents with shared characteristics, but also with differences allowing for the analysis of the different societal and ecological contexts, which will be studied along altitudinal gradients. P3 will augment, align and focus research strands already ongoing in the institutions of P3 partners. The principal aim of P3 is to understand the impact of climate change on mountain watersheds and the risks for stakeholders and the general public. P3 aims to raise awareness for the changes in mountain ecosystems around the world. P3 will then develop a set of headline indicators using the mountains as sentinels and to elaborate policy recommendations to establish mountain freshwater ecosystem as sentinels for biodiversity and climate change.

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