Abstract
The recent discovery of a unique and well-preserved fossil deposit (the Mare-aux-Songes - MAS - or Dodo Lagerstätten) on Mauritus in the Indian Ocean opens up an unequalled possibility to reconstruct changes in a tropical ecosystem as a consequence of direct human activity and climate change. Research focusing on the effect of direct human impact in combination with natural and anthropogenic climate change on terrestrial and marine environments since the last Ice Age has so far concentrated mainly on ecosystems in northern temperate and polar climate zones. Similar research in the tropics was hindered by the lack of suitable fossil deposits representative of terrestrial tropical ecosystems in the past. The international Dodo Research Programme (DRP) is investigating the archaeological and palaeoecological signals locked away in the fossils preserved in the Mauritius Lagerstätten. The research proposed here, focusing on the excellently preserved wood samples abundant in the MAS deposit, is highly complementary to the DRP and aims to reconstruct the ecological (including climate) and biodiversity changes that have taken place between 4000 years ago and the present day. Moreover we propose to trace, and thus increase understanding of, seasonality changes during the 300 year deposition period of the MAS deposits on a seasonal, annual, decadal and centennial scale during this climatic optimum. A combined geochemical and dendrological approach will be applied to the subfossil, herbarium and living wood material. This will enable direct comparisons between the ecology and biodiversity of the mid-Holocene climatic optimum and that of today and will provide essential new data for models focusing on effect of future climate on, in addition to detailed prediction analysis regarding, ecological and biodiversity developments in tropical ecosystems as a function of different climate and ecomanagement scenarios.
Netherlands