[Aqualist] International Palynological Congress, 12-19 September 2020

[Simon Connor]

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to invite anyone going to the IPC/IOPC in Prague this September to consider submitting an abstract to one of the following sessions:


  *   Changing Island Ecosystems
  *   Modern pollen-vegetation studies for past land-cover reconstructions and calibration of the fossil pollen record

Session details below and information about registration and abstract submission is at https://www.prague2020.cz/2ndCircular_IPC-IOPC.pdf. The deadline for abstract submissions is 31 March 2020.

Hope to see you in Prague!
Simon

Simon Connor
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/connor-sxx
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Changing Island Ecosystems (symposium H05, chairs: Simon Connor, Sandra Nogué, Lea de Nascimento, Michela Mariani, Janelle Stevenson and Simon Haberle)

There are over 100,000 islands on Earth, which support 20% of global biodiversity. Island ecosystems are globally significant for their unique evolutionary histories and high rates of endemism. With this uniqueness comes vulnerability, and islands have suffered disproportionately high rates of extinction as a consequence of human colonisation. In many cases the deep impacts of colonisation have left us with an incomplete picture of islands' original ecological structure and functioning. Palaeoecological approaches can help to complete this picture by reconstructing past ecosystems, providing crucial data for developing sustainable futures for island biota in the context of changing climates, increasingly frequent extreme events and sea-level rise.

This symposium provides a forum for the latest advances in long-term ecological research on the world's islands and archipelagos. The symposium invites contributions that address the question: how can palaeo-data contribute to knowledge of changing island ecosystems through time?  We particularly invite contributions on (i) the use of novel techniques and proxies to quantify ecosystem change due to human colonisation, (ii) understanding the resilience of island ecosystems to disturbances and climate variability, and (iii) applying palaeoecological data to test key predictions of ecological and biogeographical theory. This session welcomes all scientific contributions that seek to better understand the long-term history of biodiversity change and identify patterns that have shaped current island ecosystems.

Modern pollen-vegetation studies for past land-cover reconstructions and calibration of the fossil pollen record (symposium M01, chairs: Martin Theuerkauf, Michela Mariani, Vojtech Abraham & Petr Kuneš)

True quantitative interpretation of fossil pollen data is essential to produce realistic estimates of past changes in land cover and plant diversity, and hence crucial to understand how climatic change and disturbance have shaped landscapes of the past. However, pollen data are often dramatically skewed in favour of the taxa that produce the most pollen, which is an issue that has hampered quantitative vegetation reconstruction since the beginning of palynological research, over 100 years ago.

Today, models for quantitative interpretation are available. Still, the first step towards their application is calibration of the modern pollen-vegetation relationship for estimation of pollen productivity, source areas and pollen dispersal patterns of key plant taxa. These parameters are presently scattered and variable in terms of the underlying methodological approaches and results. Modern pollen studies for such purposes are currently being undertaken all around the world, ranging from arctic tundra to tropical rainforests. This session welcomes studies that use modern pollen deposition in moss polsters, lake sediment or pollen traps to estimate pollen productivity, explore pollen dispersal patterns, calibrate pollen diversity or quantify taphonomy and other biases in the pollen record. The session also welcomes studies that explore pollen productivity in other ways, i.e. by counting pollen produced directly or with ROPES.