Research Interests

Quaternary palaeoecology and stratigraphy.  Research centres on understanding the response of vegetation to variations in climatic forcing on different timescales (orbital and millennial/centennial).

Recent research has focused on developing improved terrestrial chronologies for southern Europe, generating interglacial pollen records from marine sequences in the Portuguese margin, producing the most detailed European pollen record of the last 250,000 years in W. Greece, and examining the character of vegetation changes in SW Portugal during the penultimate glacial.

This research is providing:

1. New insights into the sensitivity of vegetation to different intensities and frequencies of climate forcing.
2. A revised understanding of the phase relationships between abrupt climate changes and the response of terrestrial ecosystems in different areas.
3. A re-evaluation of the timing and duration of interglacial conditions on land.
4. An improved understanding of the role of areas of relative ecological stability, not only for the long-term survival of species in Europe, but also for the emergence of new ones.
5. Insights into the climatic signature of critical intervals in human evolution.