Courses / Module

We monitor our current environments and identify change; but, how do we know what they were like and how dynamic they were before we started to collect written records? Palaeoecology is the study of past ecology and environmental change. By examining environmental changes over longer time periods we can put recent anthropogenic change in context; for example, we can better understand how to manage habitats and biodiversity; understand the drivers of change in cultural landscapes and use evidence to debate how to manage them into the future; and we can also contribute to a fuller understanding of the impacts and drivers of climate change.
This course will examine how we use pollen and other microfossils to investigate ecological and environmental change in the last c.10,000 years. It will examine the major ecological changes that have taken place in this time period, developing an understanding of both natural and human driven changes in the landscape.
The module will cover the basic methods of palaeoecology, particularly the use and analysis of pollen and fungal spores and the tools for dating stratigraphic sequences.
We will examine the scope of ecological change in various landscapes including Ireland and international examples.
Practical sessions and a fieldwork day will provide hands-on experience of research methods. Each student will be assessed on this aspect of the course via a written report.
A workshop at the end of the course will provide a forum for a debate on the impact of palaeoecological knowledge on the future management of a landscape.