Thesis subject

MSc thesis topic: Climate, Land-Use Change, and Biodiversity: The paleoenvironmental history of the Atlas Mountains

This MSc topic focuses on how human-driven land-use change and harvesting of megafauna like elephants interacted with environmental variability to affect the structure and function of ecological communities in history.

We will investigate the Anthromes 12K dataset (Ellis et al. 2021) over the Atlas Mountains in Northern Africa to get a sense of the land cover in history. We identify and use paleoenvironmental datasets, and paleogenomic data to determine changes in climate that may have impacted megaherbivore abundance and distribution.We hypothesize that natural climate change (such as the aridification of North Africa) played a role along with human harvesting and land-use in the decline of elephant populations (and the total elimination of the population in the Atlas Mountains).

Relevance to research/projects at GRS or other groups

This project will foster a collaboration between GRS and a historian from the University of Oklahoma.

Objectives and Research questions

  • Apply the Anthromes dataset over the Atlas Mountains to create a series of maps understanding how this area has changed throughout history.
  • Identify available tree ring and lake level datasets and other historical records over the region.
  • Investigate the global database of Holocene paleotemperature records for records in the Atlands mountains and cross-reference with the available tree ring data.
  • Map out elevation and slope. Use know suitability ranges for elephants to get a better sense of when and where elephants may have lived in the region in history.
  • Literature search: georeference historical descriptions of elephants in the region.

Requirements

  • Good GIS background.
  • Geoscripting.
  • Affinity with history and historical GIS data.
  • Interest in historical GIS analysis.

Literature and information

  • Paleoclimatology data
  • Messerli, B., & Winiger, M. (1992). Climate, environmental change, and resources of the African mountains from the Mediterranean to the equator. Mountain research and development, 315-336.
  • Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C., et al. (2020). A global database of Holocene paleotemperature records. Scientific Data, 7, 115.
  • Cheddadi, R., Henrot, A. J., François, L., Boyer, F., Bush, M., Carré, M., ... & Zheng, Z. (2017). Microrefugia, climate change, and conservation of Cedrus atlantica in the Rif Mountains, Morocco. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 5, 114.

Theme(s): Integrated Land Monitoring; Human – space interaction