More about the Programme
Today mankind is concerned with drastic reductions in terrestrial biodiversity as habitats are reduced or altered by human activities. The geological history of terrestrial ecosystems is an important topic for both biologists and earth scientists, touching on such fundamental problems as environmental fragmentation versus biodiversity. This project will investigate changes in terrestrial ecosystems during the Neogene, a time interval that has witnessed enormous geographical and environmental changes in Europe, yet is close enough to the present that we can understand floral and faunal change by reference to present-day genera in present-day ecosystems.
It is self-evident that pan-European cooperation is essential inasmuch as the scale of the geological phenomena is large. An equally important reason for pan-European collaboration lies in the nature of mammalian palaeontology; research groups are small and typically one centre has a particular expertise in one group (for example, pigs or rodents). Thus it is only possible to investigate changes in whole ecosystems by bringing together experts on all the important fossil groups together with specialists on the history of vegetation, other terrestrial organisms such as molluscs, experts on the external (especially from marine sediments) evidence for changing climates, on the basic geological reconstructions and especially on the construction and application of high-resolution timescales.
Ongoing research on the marine record is investigating for the circum-Mediterranean area the coeval evolution of the ocean-climate system in those same intervals of time as have been selected for this study. This research aims at the modelling of marine environmental / depositional systems. However, modelling of terrestrial palaeoenvironments, which is a prerequisite if we are to arrive at a "total system view" of the earth system, lags behind other studies. Moreover neither recent advances in high-resolution chronology, nor the recent palaeogeographic and palinspastic reconstructions, have yet been assimilated in this field. The proposed programme is a pioneering attempt to examine terrestrial ecosystems in the framework of a new generation of spatial and temporal reconstructions.
Activities
- Working Groups
- Plenary Workshops
- Grant Scheme
- Email mailing list
A brochure containing information on the scientific background and aims and objectives of the programme has been published and can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF 468 KB)
