Staff Profile:Professor Frank Mayle

Name:

Professor Frank Mayle

Job Title:

Professor in Tropical Palaeoecology

Responsibilities:

Areas of Interest:

• The application of palaeoecological techniques (in particular, fossil pollen, phytoliths and charcoal from lake sediments and/or soils) to investigate the patterns and causes of long-term vegetation dynamics in Amazonia and elsewhere in tropical South America.
• Millennial, Holocene, and Quaternary glacial-interglacial time frames.
• Interactions between past climate change, human land use, fire, and Neotropical ecosystems.
• Inter-disciplinary collaboration, especially with ecologists, archaeologists, palaeo-climatologists, and modellers.

Research questions of current interest:

• How did southern Amazonian rainforests respond to mid-Holocene drought, and what are the implications for understanding the likely impact of future global warming and increased drought?
• To what extent was pre-Columbian (pre-AD1492) Amazonia a pristine wilderness versus domesticated landscape, and what are the implications for tropical ecology, biogeochemical cycling and anthropology/archaeology?
• How can knowledge of past millennial-scale vegetation dynamics and pre-Columbian land use inform current debates and policy concerning natural resource management, poverty alleviation, and conservation in tropical South America?

Postgraduate and Postdoctoral Supervision:

Frank is keen to discuss proposals for research within the broad themes of Neotropical palaeoecology, palaeoclimatology, and past human-environment interactions.

Current PhD Supervision:

• Richard Smith - Amazonia under Mid-Holocene Drought. ('SCENARIO' NERC DTP award, 2014-2017).
• Heather Plumpton - Amazonia and the 6K Drought. (UoR Faculty of Science & SAGES award, 2014-2017).
• Mariah Correia - Reconstruction of Atlantic Rainforest vegetation dynamics since the late Pleistocene in Espirito Santo & Bahia states, Brazil. (CNPq award, Brazil, 2014-2017.

Current Postdocs:

Dr. Macarena Cardenas - Je Landscapes of southern Brazil: Ecology, History and Power in a transitional landscape during the late Holocene. (AHRC award, 2014-2017).

Dr. John Carson - Pre-Columbian Amazonian Palaeoecology. (UoR award, 2014-2017.

Research groups / Centres:

• Environmental Science Research Division
• Centre for Past Climate Change
• Tropical Palaeoecology Research Group

Key facts:

Frank Mayle has a BSc in Botany from the University of Reading (1986), an MSc in Palynology from the University of Sheffield (1988), and a PhD in Palaeoecology from the University of New Brunswick, Canada (1993), where he studied the impact of abrupt late-glacial climate change upon vegetation of Atlantic Canada. He was a NERC-funded PDRA at Royal Holloway, University of London (1993-94), where he worked with John Lowe on late-glacial environmental change in Scotland. Shortly after taking up his first academic post at the University of Leicester in late 1994, Frank's research focus shifted to tropical South America, where he has worked ever since, in particular on the long-term history of Amazonian tropical forest ecosystems. He moved to The University of Edinburgh in 2004, before returning to Reading in June 2013.

His pioneering work in the Amazon, published in Science (2000), demonstrated the responsiveness of southern Amazonian forests to millennial-scale climate change. Much of his career since then has focused on forest-savanna ecotonal responses to Late Quaternary climatic change in Amazonian Bolivia, where he has led 10 field expeditions to remote corners of the country, in collaboration with the 'Noel Kempff Mercado' Natural History Museum of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. His lab has assembled a world-renowned Neotropical pollen reference collection (over 1200 Amazonian taxa) and has made important methodological advances in pollen analysis and other palaeoenvironmental techniques.

In recent years, Frank has become increasingly interested in the complex interplay between human land use, fire, climate change and ecosystem dynamics through the Holocene - across Amazonia and elsewhere in tropical South America. This has led to fruitful, inter-disciplinary collaboration with palaeoenvironmental scientists, biologists, and archaeologists across the world - in the UK, Germany, USA, Bolivia, and Brazil.

He was PI on two recently completed research projects, entitled Pre-Columbian human land-use and impacts in the Bolivian Amazon (The Leverhulme Trust, 2010-2013), and Environmental Impact of the Pre-Columbian geoglyph builders in western Amazonia (National Geographic, 2012-2013). He is currently co-I on: a) a large research grant, co-funded by AHRC (UK) and FAPESP (Sao Paulo state, Brazil), entitled Je Landscapes of southern Brazil: Ecology, History and Power in a transitional landscape during the late Holocene (2014-2017); and b) a Newton research grant, co-funded by NERC and FAPEAM (Amazonas state, Brazil), entitled The Origins of Plant Domestication in the Upper Madeira river basin in lowland South America (2015-2016).

Frank is a 'Special Visiting Researcher' to CENA/University of Sao Paulo, on a project entitled Origin of Biodiversity in the Central Atlantic Forest of Brazil, funded by Brazil's CNPq 'Science Without Borders' programme (2014-2016). He is also Project Partner on a large, multi-disciplinary research consortium, entitled Assembly and evolution of the Amazonian biota and its environment: an integrated approach, co-funded by FAPESP (Sao Paulo state, Brazil) and NSF (USA), 2013-2016.

Frank is Associate Editor for The Holocene (2006 - present) and is a member of the Landcover6K project and the NERC radiocarbon committee (2014 - present).

Publications:

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Jump to: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008

Number of items: 43.

2017

• Sánchez Goñi, M. F., Desprat, S., Daniau, A.-L., Bassinot, F. C., Polanco-Martínez, J. M., Harrison, S. P., Allen, J. R. M., Anderson, R. S., Behling, H., Bonnefille, R., Burjachs, F., Carrión, J. S., Cheddadi, R., Clark, J. S., Combourieu-Nebout, N., Courtney-Mustaphi, C. J., Debusk, G. H., Dupont, L. M., Finch, J. M., Fletcher, W. J., Giardini, M., González, C., Gosling, W. D., Grigg, L. D., Grimm, E. C., Hayashi, R., Helmens, K., Heusser, L. E., Hill, T., Hope, G., Huntley, B., Igarashi, Y., Irino, T., Jacobs, B., Jiménez-Moreno, G., Kawai, S., Kershaw, P., Kumon, F., Lawson, I. T., Ledru, M.-P., Lézine, A.-M., Liew, P. M., Magri, D., Marchant, R., Margari, V., Mayle, F. E., McKenzie, M., Moss, P., Müller, S., Müller, U. C., Naughton, F., Newnham, R. M., Oba, T., Pérez-Obiol, R., Pini, R., Ravazzi, C., Roucoux, K. H., Rucina, S. M., Scott, L., Takahara, H., Tzedakis, P. C., Urrego, D. H., van Geel, B., Valencia, B. G., Vandergoes, M. J., Vincens, A., Whitlock, C. L., Willard, D. A. and Yamamoto, M. (2017) The ACER pollen and charcoal database: a global resource to document vegetation and fire response to abrupt climate changes during the last glacial period. Earth System Science Data, 9 (2). pp. 679-695. ISSN 1866-3516 doi: 10.5194/essd-2017-4
• Smith, R. J. and Mayle, F. E. (2017) Impact of mid-to-late Holocene precipitation changes on vegetation across lowland tropical South America: a palaeo-data synthesis. Quaternary Research. ISSN 0033-5894 (In Press)
• Gosling, W. D., Julier, A. C.M., Adu-Bredu, S., Djagbletey, G. D., Fraser, W. T., Jardine, P. E., Lomax, B. H., Malhi, Y., Manu, E. A., Mayle, F. E. and Moore, S. (2017) Pollen-vegetation richness and diversity relationships in the tropics. Journal of Vegetation History & Archaeobotany. ISSN 0939-6314 (In Press)
• Iriarte, J., Smith, R. J., de Souza, J. G., Mayle, F. E., Whitney, B. S., Cardenas, M. L., Singarayer, J., Carson, J. F., Roy, S. and Valdes, P. (2017) Out of Amazonia: late-Holocene climate change and the Tupi–Guarani trans-continental expansion. The Holocene, 27 (7). pp. 967-975. ISSN 0959-6836 doi: 10.1177/0959683616678461
• Robinson, M., Iriarte, J., de Souza, J., Corteletti, R., Ulguim, P., Fradley, M., Cardenas, M., De Blasis, P., Mayle, F. and Scunderlick, D. (2017) Moieties and mortuary mounds: dualism at a mound and enclosure complex in the southern Brazilian Highlands. Latin American Antiquity, 28 (2). pp. 232-251. ISSN 1045-6635 doi: 10.1017/laq.2017.11
• Watling, J., Iriarte, J., Mayle, F. E., Schaan, D., Pessenda, L. C.R., Loader, N. J., Street-Perrott, F. A., Dickau, R. E., Damasceno, A. and Ranzi, A. (2017) Impact of pre-Columbian 'geoglyph' builders on Amazonian forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114 (8). pp. 1868-1873. ISSN 0027-8424 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1614359114

2016

• de Souza, J. G., Robinson, M., Corteletti, R., Cárdenas, M. L., Wolf, S., Iriarte, J., Mayle, F. and DeBlasis, P. (2016) Understanding the chronology and occupation dynamics of oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands. PLoS ONE, 11 (7). e0158127. ISSN 1932-6203 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158127
• Power, M. J., Whitney, B. S., Mayle, F. E., Neves, D. M., de Boer, E. J. and Maclean, K. S. (2016) Fire, climate and vegetation linkages in the Bolivian Chiquitano Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371 (1696). 20150165. ISSN 0962-8436 doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0165
• Carson, J. F., Mayle, F. E., Whitney, B. S., Iriarte, J. and Soto, J. D. (2016) Pre-Columbian ring ditch construction and land use on a “chocolate forest island” in the Bolivian Amazon. Journal of Quaternary Science, 31 (4). pp. 337-347. ISSN 0267-8179 doi: 10.1002/jqs.2835
• Fornace, K. L., Whitney, B. S., Galy, V., Hughen, K. A. and Mayle, F. E. (2016) Late Quaternary environmental change in the interior South American tropics: new insight from leaf wax stable isotopes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 438. pp. 75-85. ISSN 0012-821X doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2016.01.007
• Watling, J., Iriarte, J., Whitney, B. S., Consuelo, E., Mayle, F., Castro, W., Schaan, D. and Feldpausch, T. R. (2016) Differentiation of neotropical ecosystems by modern soil phytolith assemblages and its implications for palaeoenvironmental and archaeological reconstructions II: Southwestern Amazonian forests. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 226. pp. 30-43. ISSN 0034-6667 doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2015.12.002
• Flantua, S. G. A., Hooghiemstra, H., Vuille, M., Behling, H., Carson, J. F., Gosling, W. D., Hoyos , I., Ledru, M. P., Montoya, E., Mayle, F., Maldonado, A., Rull, V., Tonello, M. S., Whitney, B. S. and González-Arango, C. (2016) Climate variability and human impact in South America during the last 2000 years: synthesis and perspectives from pollen records. Climate of the Past, 12 (2). pp. 483-523. ISSN 1814-9332 doi: 10.5194/cp-12-483-2016
• Matthews-Bird, F., Gosling, W. D., Coe, A. L., Bush, M., Mayle, F. E., Axford, Y. and Brooks, S. J. (2016) Environmental controls on the distribution and diversity of lentic Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) across an altitudinal gradient in tropical South America. Ecology and Evolution, 6 (1). pp. 91-112. ISSN 2045-7758 doi: 10.1002/ece3.1833

2015

• Cárdenas, M. L., Robinson, M., Corteletti, R., Ulguim, P., Gregório de Souza, J., Iriarte, J., Mayle, F. E., Scunderlick Eloy de Farias, D. and DeBlasis, P. (2015) Integrating archaeology and palaeoecology to understand Jê landscapes in southern Brazil. Antiquity Project Gallery, 348.
• Carson, J., Watling, J., Mayle, F., Whitney, B. S., Iriarte, J., Prumers , H. and Soto, J. D. (2015) Pre-Columbian land use in the ring-ditch region of the Bolivian Amazon. The Holocene, 25 (8). pp. 1285-1300. ISSN 0959-6836 doi: 10.1177/0959683615581204
• Maezumi, S. Y., Power, M. J., Mayle, F. E., McLauchlan, K. K. and Iriarte, J. (2015) Effects of past climate variability on fire and vegetation in the cerrãdo savanna of the Huanchaca Mesetta, NE Bolivia. Climate of the Past, 11 (6). pp. 835-853. ISSN 1814-9324 doi: 10.5194/cp-11-835-2015

2014

• Carson, J., Whitney , B., Mayle, F., Iriarte, J., Prümers, H., Soto, J. D. and Watling, J. (2014) Reply to Silva: Dynamic human-vegetation-climate interactions at forest ecotones during the late-Holocene in lowland South America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111 (37). E3833-E3833. ISSN 0027-8424 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1413867111
• Carson, J. F., Whitney, B. S., Mayle, F. E., Iriarte, J., Prümers, H. and Watling , J. (2014) Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111 (29). pp. 10497-10502. ISSN 0027-8424 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1321770111
• Metcalfe, S. E., Whitney, B. S., Fitzpatrick, K. A., Mayle, F. E., Loader, N. J., Street-Perrott, A. A. and Mann, D. G. (2014) Hydrology and climatology at Laguna La Gaiba, lowland Bolivia: complex responses to climatic forcings over the last 25,000 years. Journal of Quaternary Science, 29 (3). pp. 289-300. ISSN 1099-1417 doi: 10.1002/jqs.2702
• Whitney, B. S., Dickau, R., Mayle, F. E., Walker, J. H., Soto, J. D. and Iriarte, J. (2014) Pre-Columbian raised-field agriculture and land use in the Bolivian Amazon. The Holocene, 24 (2). pp. 231-241. ISSN 0959-6836 doi: 10.1177/0959683613517401
• Whitney, B. S., Mayle, F. E., Burn, M. J., Guillen, R., Chavez, E. and Pennington, R. T. (2014) Sensitivity of Bolivian seasonally-dry tropical forest to precipitation and temperature changes over glacial-interglacial timescales. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 23 (1). pp. 1-14. ISSN 1617-6278 doi: 10.1007/s00334-013-0395-1
• Bush, M. B., McMichael, C. H., Raczka, M. F., de Toledo, M. B., Power, M. J., Mayle, F. E. and de Oliveira, P. E. (2014) The Holocene of the Amazon. In: de Souza Carvalho, I. , Garcia, M. J., Strohschoen, O. and Lana, C. C. (eds.) Paleontologia: Cenarios de Vida - Paleoclimas. Interciencia , pp. 387-396. ISBN 9788571933439
• Bush, M. B., de Oliveira, P. E. D., Raczka, M. F., Gosling, W. D., Mayle, F. E., McMichael, C. H. and Urrego, D. H. (2014) Paleocliates of Amazonia: An Ice-Age view. In: de Souza Carvalho, I., Garcia, M. J. , Strohschoen, O. and Lana, C. C. (eds.) Paleontologia: Cenarios de Vida - Paleoclimas. Interciencia, Rio de Janeiro, pp. 353-368. ISBN 9788571933439

2013

• Whitney, B. S., Dickau, R., Mayle, F. E., Soto, J. D. and Iriarte, J. (2013) Pre-Columbian landscape impact and agriculture in the Monumental Mound region of the Llanos de Moxos, lowland Bolivia. Quaternary Research, 80 (2). pp. 207-217. ISSN 0033-5894 doi: 10.1016/j.yqres.2013.06.005
• Power, M. J., Mayle, F. E., Bartlein, P. J., Marlon, J. R., Anderson, R. S., Behling, H., Brown, K. J., Carcaillet, C., Colombaroli, D., Gavin, D. G., Hallett, D. J., Horn, S. P., Kennedy, L. M., Lane, C. S., Long, C. J., Moreno, P. I., Paitre, C., Robinson, G., Taylor, Z. and Walsh, M. K. (2013) Climatic control of the biomass-burning decline in the Americas after AD 1500. The Holocene, 23 (1). pp. 3-13. ISSN 0959-6836 doi: 10.1177/0959683612450196
• Dickau, R., Whitney, B. S., Iriarte, J., Mayle, F. E., Soto, J. D., Metcalfe, P., Street-Perrott, F. A., Loader, N. J., Ficken, K. J. and Killeen, T. J. (2013) Differentiation of neotropical ecosystems by modern soil phytolith assemblages and its implications for palaeoenvironmental and archaeological reconstructions. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 193. pp. 15-37. ISSN 0034-6667 doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2013.01.004
• Mayle, F. E. and Iriarte, J. (2013) Integrated palaeoecology and archaeology: a powerful approach for understanding pre-Columbian Amazonia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 51. pp. 54-64. ISSN 0305-4403 doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2012.08.038

2012

• Dickau, R., Bruno, M.C., Iriarte, J., Prumers, H., Betancourt, C. J., Holst, I. and Mayle, F. E. (2012) Diversity of cultivars and other plant resources used at habitation sites in the Llanos de Mojos, Beni, Bolivia: Evidence from macrobotanical remains, starch grains, and phytoliths. Journal of Archaeological Science, 39 (2). pp. 357-370. ISSN 0305-4403 doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2011.09.021
• Iriarte, J., Power, M. J., Rostain, S., Mayle, F. E., Jones, H., Watling, J., Whitney, B. S. and McKey, D. B. (2012) Fire-free land use in pre-1492 Amazonian savannas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109 (17). pp. 6473-6478. ISSN 1091-6490 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1201461109
• Mayle, F. E. and Whitney, B. S. (2012) Long-term perspectives on tropical forest-savanna dynamics in lowland Bolivia from the last ice age until the present. In: Myster, R. M. (ed.) Ecotones between forest and grassland. Springer, New York, pp. 189-207. ISBN 9781461437963
• Whitney, B. and Mayle, F. (2012) Pediastrum species as potential indicators of lake-level change in tropical South America. Journal of Paleolimnology, 47 (4). pp. 601-615. ISSN 0921-2728 doi: 10.1007/s10933-012-9583-8
• Whitney, B. S., Rushton, E. A. C., Carson, J. F., Iriarte, J. and Mayle, F. E. (2012) An improved methodology for the recovery of Zea mays and other large crop pollen, with implications for environmental archaeology in the Neotropics. The Holocene, 22 (10). pp. 1087-1096. ISSN 0959-6836 doi: 10.1177/0959683612441842

2011

• Whitney, B. S., Mayle, F. E., Punyasena, S. W., Fitzpatrick, K. A., Burn, M. J., Guillen, R., Chavez, E., Mann, D., Pennington, R. T. and Metcalfe, S. E. (2011) A 45 kyr palaeoclimate record from the lowland interior of tropical South America. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 307 (1-4). pp. 177-192. ISSN 0031-0182 doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.05.012
• Jones, H. T., Mayle, F. E., Pennington, R. T. and Killeen, T. J. (2011) Characterisation of Bolivian savanna ecosystems by their modern pollen rain and implications for fossil pollen records. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 164 (3-4). pp. 223-237. ISSN 0034-6667 doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2011.01.001
• Mayle, F. E. (2011) A review of Holocene rainforest ecotonal dynamics at opposite ends of the Amazon - Bolivia versus Colombia. Geographica Helvetica, 66 (3). pp. 202-207. ISSN 2194-8798 doi: 10.5194/gh-66-202-2011

2010

• Burn, M. J., Mayle, F. E. and Killeen, T. J. (2010) Pollen-based differentiation of Amazonian rainforest communities and implications for lowland palaeoecology in tropical South America. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 295 (1-2). pp. 1-18. ISSN 0031-0182 doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.05.009

2009

• Gosling, W. D., Mayle, F. E., Tate, N. J. and Killeen, T. J. (2009) Differentiation between Neotropical rainforest, dry forest and savannah ecosystems by their modern pollen spectra and implications for the fossil pollen record. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 153 (1-2). pp. 70-85. ISSN 0034-6667 doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2008.06.007
• Urrego, D. H., Bush, M. B., Silman, M. R., Correa-Metrio, A. Y. , Ledru, M.-P., Mayle, F. E., Paduano, G. and Valencia, B. G. (2009) Millennial-scale ecological changes in tropical South America since the Last Glacial Maximum. In: Sylvestre, F., Vimeux, F. and Khodri, M. (eds.) Past climate variability in South America and surrounding regions: from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. Developments in paleoenvironmental research (14). Springer, New York, pp. 283-300. ISBN 9789048126729
• Marchant, R., Cleef, A., Harrison, S.P., Hooghiemstra, H., Markgraf, V., van Boxel, J., Ager, T., Almeida, L., Anderson, R., Baied, C., Behling, H., Berrio, J.C., Burbridge, R., Bjorck, S., Byrne, R., Bush, M., Duivenvoorden, J., Flenley, J., de Oliveira, P., van Geel, B., Graf, K., Gosling, W.D., Harbele, S., van der Hammen, T., Hansen, B., Horn, S., Kuhry, P., Ledru, M.-P., Mayle, F.E., Leyden, B., Lozano-Garcia, S., Melief, A.M., Moreno, P., Moar, N.T., Preito, A., van Reenen, G., Salgado-Labouriau, M., Schabitz, F., Schreve-Brinkman, E.J. and Wille, M. (2009) Pollen-based biome reconstructions for Latin America at 0, 6000 and 18000 radiocarbon years. Climate of the Past, 5. pp. 369-461. ISSN 1814-9324 doi: 10.5194/cp-5-725-2009
• Mayle, F. E., Burn, M. J., Power, M. and Urrego, D. H. (2009) Vegetation and fire at the Last Glacial Maximum in tropical South America. In: Sylvestre, F., Vimeux, F. and Khodri, M. (eds.) Past climate variability in South America and surrounding regions: from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. Developments in paleoenvironmental research (14). Springer, New York, pp. 89-112. ISBN 9789048126729

2008

• Mayle, F. E. and Power, M. J. (2008) Impact of a drier Early-Mid-Holocene climate upon Amazonian forests. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363 (1498). pp. 1829-1838. ISSN 0962-8436 doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.0019
• Burn, M. J. and Mayle, F. E. (2008) Palynological differentiation between genera of the Moraceae family and implications for Amazonian palaeoecology. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 149 (3-4). pp. 187-201. ISSN 0034-6667 doi: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2007.12.003
• Punyasena, S. W., Mayle, F. E. and McElwain, J. C. (2008) Quantitative estimates of glacial and Holocene temperature and precipitation change in lowland Amazonian Bolivia. Geology, 36 (8). pp. 667-670. ISSN 0091-7613 doi: 10.1130/G24784A.1

This list was generated on Sun Oct 22 07:17:24 2017 BST.