Paleobotany

Palynology and Paleoecology

Dynamics of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems can be reconstructed (at least in parts) by the identification and quantification of fossil/subfossil remains. If this is done in sediment sequences we can establish biostratigraphies and we can estimate changes of species composition through time.

Three preconditions for any biostratigraphy:
Fossilisation: parts of the organisms are preserved (do not easily decompose)
Specialists in CH:
Pollen (made of sporopollenin) paleoecology group at Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern
Plant macrofossils (fruits, seeds, cuticula, stomata)
Charcoal (from forest fires, biomass burning)
Insects (made of chitin, beetles, Chironomids (Isabelle Laroque)
Algae: Diatoms (made of SiO2), (Christian Bigler)
Cladocera (Katka Mikolasova)
Molluscs
Morphological diversity: Makes identification possible
Archives, as undisturbed as possible: in lake sediment and in peat of mires and bogs the presence of water and therefore lack of oxygen plus the burial with sediment or peat makes the preservation of the biological remains possible.

Research questions and applications:
What vegetation grew around the site?
What aquatic biota lived in the lake?
How did they change over time? Timescales can be millennia or decades or years (we need independent dating such as radiocarbon or others)
What vegetation patterns were present (within the forests, or forests and grasslands)
What was the water quality? pH? Temperature? Nutrient status?
What was the climate? There are a number of specific techniques for climate reconstructions.
What was the human impact on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems? Prehistory of history...to be compared with archaeological and historical data.

Links: For specific projects please go to
www.botany.unibe.ch