Vegetation dynamics and paleoclimate in western Canada

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Environmental disturbances that can negatively affect natural ecosystems and human societies are many, with current public attention focussed primarily on climate changes, and sometimes on epsiodic events like earthquakes and tsunamis. My research program since 1976 continues to emphasize studying past occurrences (over thousands of years) of environmental impacts in Western Canada, with the aim of better understanding the long-term effects of disturbances such as climate changes, earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic eruptions, and using this knowledge to help predict future impacts on natural systems. My collaborators and students work with me on a variety of research projects that all provide information on vegetation changes associated with past disturbances. Since vegetation is a good "proxy" for climatic conditions, past changes in temperature and moisture can often be reconstructed from fossil plant data. Such paleo-data can help check the accuracy of computer-based climate models and provides long time series for recurring climate changes in the atmosphere and oceans. These data are also important in the management of parks, forestry, fisheries, and cultural resources as well as providing an environmental context for investigations of First Nations history.