McMichael, C. N. H., Watson, J. A., & Bush, M. B. (2025). Long‐term fire and vegetation change at Cocha Cashu Biological Station, Peru. Biotropica, 57(3), e70010.

Gomes, B. T., McMichael, C. N. H., Witteveen, N., Martel, K., Kool, C., R. Canales-Aguilera, S., Peterson, L. C., C. León-Yánez, S., & Bush, M. B. (2025). Late Holocene multiphasic use and occupation around a western Amazonian Lake. Quaternary Science Reviews, 359, 109387.

M.A. Sowunmi at her graduation ceremony. Photo from: Orijemie (2025) Palynos, 48(2), 4-8 The Palynological Association of Nigeria hosted a webinar on Wednesday 24 September 2026 to posthumously celebrate the 87th birthday of pioneering palynologist and environmental archaeologists Prof. Margaret Adebisi Sowunmi (University of Ibadan, Nigeria). The event included a keynote lecture from myself (William Gosling, University of Amsterdam), a special guest lecture from…

Open access: Bush, M. B., Sales, R. K., Neill, D., Valencia, B. G., León-Yánez, S., Stanley, A., Sinkler, W., Bennett, I., Gomes, B. T., Land, K., & McMichael, C. N. H. (2025). Ecological legacies and recent footprints of the Amazon’s Lost City. Nature Communications, 16(1), 7408.

Open access: McMichael, C. N. H., Guerra, D., Witteveen, N. H., Heijink, B. M., Zwarts, A., Zuquim, G., Balslev, H., Ruokolainen, K., & Tuomisto, H. (2026). Soil phytolith assemblages reflect palm community composition in western Amazonia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 344, 105443.

Tectonic processes play a key role in the global mercury (Hg) cycle on geological timescales, by mobilising Hg from deep Earth reservoirs to the surface. These natural fluxes also introduce a dynamic...

The PAGES (Past Global Changes) organization, which helps coordinate and promotes the scientific community related to understanding our planets past, is looking to hire a Data Science Officer. This position will include being involved with: supporting the PAGES working groups, community data management, and editorial work across PAGES. Deadline 2 November 2026. For full information check out the PAGES website: Past Global Changes Job advertisement and application information

The latest edition of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) BSc course Palaeoecology took place in September. This course is centred around an "environmental forensics" project, during which students use palaeoecological tools to identify the location that their "mystery slides" came from. To achieve this the students gain experience of: Microscope work, learning how to identify the characteristics of the vegetation recorded in their slides in the pollen and phytoliths.

McMichael, C. N. H., Bush, M. B., Ter Steege, H., Piperno, D. R., Gosling, W. D., Nascimento, M. N., Lombardo, U., De Souza Coelho, L., Leão Do Amaral, I., De Almeida Matos, F. D., De Andrade Lima Filho, D., Castilho, C. V., Wittmann, F., Guevara-Andino, J. E., Magnusson, W. E., Salomão, R. P., Phillips, O. L., Cardenas Revilla, J.

For a lot of the 20th century, a commonly cited estimate said there were around 300,000 Indigenous people living across Australia prior to invasion. But new research says the Aboriginal population was...

1,598 likes, 158 comments - senatorthorpe on September 17, 2026: "2.2 million First Peoples existed pre-colonisation. I asked Minister Wong the tough questions.".

Open access: Cabrera Sáenz, L., McMichael, C. N. H., O’Connor, M. R., Witteveen, N. H., Tacoronte Gomes, B., Filjon, K., John, O., Tokarski, B., Peterson, L. C., Dibb, J. E., & Bush, M. B. (2026). The legacy of post-Columbian disturbance in shaping a northwestern Amazonian forest. The Holocene, 36(7), 760–769.

Australia had a much larger Indigenous population before the arrival of Europeans than previously thought, according to new research. The research also demonstrates much larger population […]

Australia had a much larger Indigenous population before the arrival of Europeans than previously thought, and that population suffered losses of 93 per cent after colonisation, according to new resea...

Genetic, archaeological and environmental evidence suggest the Indigenous population fell by more than 90% in the 70 years after the British invaded.

It has just been announced that the 10th European Conference of Tropical Ecology will take place at Aarhus University (Denmark) between 14 and 18 June 2027. The call for thematic sessions is currently open (deadline 15 October 2026). To find out more, and stay up to date with all the planning, click here. To find out more about the Society for Tropical Ecology click here.

During the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availa…

This September and October mark my 5-year anniversary of being told I have stage 4 head and neck cancer in 2021. I was trying to pinpoint a more exact date, but these things are never precise in the c...

Open access: Walker, A. P., Abramoff, R. Z., Baragwanath, K., Craig, M. E., Malhi, Y., & McMichael, C. N. H. (2026). Anthromes and terrestrial carbon. PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET, 8(5), 1389–1393.

Palaeoecology Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Plymouth, UK. Open to candidates with a relevant PhD and research experience.

Open access: Feeley, K. J., Iseli, E., Bektaş, B., Manzanedo, R. D., McMichael, C. H., Alexander, J. M., & Hille Ris Lambers, J. (2026). Thermophilization: Concepts, methods, and implications o…

A program for reconstructing local fire histories from high-resolution, continuously sampled lake-sediment charcoal records. 'CharAnalysis' decomposes a charcoal record into low- and high-frequency co...

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8th European Conference of Tropical Ecology 36th Annual Meeting of the Society for Tropical Ecology 24-28 February 2025, Amsterdam The 8th European Conference of Tropical Ecology took place in Amst…