PALAEOCHANGE LAB
Research lines
1. Detecting long-term terrestrial responses to environmental stressors
2. Palaeohydrology of large lakes located at climate-sensitive areas
3. Conservation palaeoecology of seagrass meadows
4. Interdisciplinary studies of humans and the environment
I have cultivated many research interests, always with the aim of better-understanding long-term human-climate-environment interactions. Most of my contributions can be arranged on four topics.
1. Detecting long-term terrestrial responses to environmental stressors
This research line focuses on the detection of long-term responses of continental environments to environmental change. In this line, I am concentrating my efforts on the palaeoecological analysis of peatlands, other wetlands, and sedimentary archives from lacustrine and archaeological settings located at Iberian cultural landscapes (López-Merino et al. 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2023; Martínez Cortizas et al. 2013, 2016, 2021; Silva-Sánchez et al. 2014; Mighall et al. 2023) and protected settings such as Picos de Europa, Doñana and Sierra Nevada National Parks (López-Merino et al. 2011; Moreno et al. 2011; Manzano et al. 2018, 2019, 2019). The palynological, charcoal, geochemical and sedimentological analyses of the palaeoenvironmental archives, together with the numerical exploration of data-sets, are delivering long-term environmental series that have allowed to identify patterns and processes of environmental change and support the role that palaeoecological research has for the evaluation of long-term ecosystem change and response to anthropogenic and climate perturbations.
2. Palaeohydrology of large lakes located at climate-sensitive areas
This research line focuses on understanding the hydrology of the Dead Sea, one of the world’s saltiest water bodies, and the Caspian Sea, the largest inland water body on Earth. My research has discarded the assumed hypothesis that Dead Sea laminations are varves using palynological, grain size distribution and multivariate statistical analyses, demonstrating that Dead Sea laminae are not varves but reconstruct a record of climate-driven palaeo-floods (López-Merino et al. 2016). Caspian Sea level fluctuations up to 100 times faster than those of the global ocean occurred from 1977 to 1995 causing serious environmental and economic damage. The causes of these recent and older rapid sea level fluctuations are unknown. I am improving the understanding of Caspian Sea level changes, as well as their causes and consequences at long-term scales (from the Pliocene to the Holocene), owing to the combination of pollen, dinoflagellate cyst and sedimentological analyses together with numerical approaches (Leroy et al. 2013, 2014, 2019; Hoyle et al. 2018, 2020, 2021; López-Merino et al. in preparation). This information is of utmost importance owing to the importance of the Caspian Sea for global climate models.
3. Conservation palaeoecology of seagrass meadows
This research line focuses on the multi-proxy palaeoecological study of Posidonia seagrass archives aiming to explore the mat palaeoecological potential (López-Sáez et al. 2009) and identify environmental stressors (climate- and anthropogenically-induced) that have impacted the seagrass ecosystem. The ecosystem formed by Posidonia seagrasses is a worldwide important carbon sink, so its preservation is key under the current global change scenario (Serrano et al. 2016). Biological and non-biological proxy analyses are delivering long-term data-series that provide insight into processes affecting the continental landscape that trigger changes in the coastal seagrass system. Floods and changes in land use during the Holocene have been linked with surface run-off that impacts on the mat organic matter accumulation dynamics as well as on the coastal eutrophication (López-Merino et al. 2015, 2017, in preparation). In addition, solar activity and changes in land-use are drivers of long-term changes in the palaeoproductivity of the seagrass ecosystem (Leiva et al. 2018, 2020). This knowledge is critical for modelling the impact of future environmental change and to inform conservation.
4. Interdisciplinary studies of humans and the environment
The current society suffers a problem of short-termism, so any effort on understanding the perception of Deep Time is invaluable to responding to the challenge of human engagement with the time-depth of environmental change. In this research line, I am collaborating with researchers with backgrounds in Anthropology, Literature, Archaeology and Geology combining our expertise to undertake interdisciplinary work on Orkney (Scotland). This is enabling community dialogue about the ways in which the lived environment of Orkney has been and will continue to be shaped by human and natural activities, in the past, the present, and the as yet, undetermined future (http://www.oceanoftime.uk).
Group members
Álvaro Moreno Martín
Álvaro Moreno joined the group in March 2022 as a Laboratory Technician funded by the Comunidad de Madrid Talento Project ECOSINK. He actively performs fieldwork to core peatlands and perform vegetation surveys as well as being in charge of peat sample preparation in the lab for further analysis. In particular, he is isolating and counting macrocharcoal particles from bogs and fens for Holocene fire activity reconstruction at the Xistral Mountains in NW Iberia.
He holds a Biology BSc (2018) and an Ecosystem's Restoration MSc (2019) by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Contact: alvmor01@ucm.es
Álvaro Hernando Bartolomé
Álvaro Hernando joined the group in September 2022 as a PhD student funded by an FPI scholarship linked to the Plan Estatal Project PALAEOFUN Project. He actively performs fieldwork to core peatlands in Spain as well as being trained in palynological and geochemical techniques for palaeoecological and paleoenvironmental reconstruction as well as in peatland plant species identification for the understanding the current ecology of peats. He is focusing on linking palaeoecological and ecological approaches using several fens from the Xistral Mountains in NW Iberia.
He holds a Biology BSc (2021) by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a Biodiversity and Conservation Biology MSc (2022) by the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville).
Contact: alvahe06@ucm.es
Past group members
Rosina Magaña Ugarte
Dr Magaña was hired a a laboratory technician within the ECOSINK project during 2021, where she was working on the functional traits of peatland plant species. She later was awarded with a Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Botany Unit.
She holds a Biotechnology BSc (2014) by the Tecnológico Monterrey (Mexico), an Agrobiology, Plant Nutrition and Health MSc (2016) by the Aarhus Universitet (Denmark) and a PHD in Ecology, Conservation and Restoration of Ecosystems (2019) by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Web: https://www.ucm.es/enviroveg/rosina-magana-ugarte
Contact: rmagana@ucm.es