It is very sad to lose a close colleague who is in his scientific prime. It is also very shameful to realize the poor coverage that local media and scientific institutions, including his own, have devoted to the decease of…
It is very sad to lose a close colleague who is in his scientific prime. It is also very shameful to realize the poor coverage that local media and scientific institutions, including his own, have devoted to the decease of…
Does the current anthropogenic biodiversity crisis really qualify as a mass extinction? Many people now uncritically accept the reality of a sixth mass extinction, but others contend that this is an unrealistic exaggeration by environmental alarmists. The IUCN (International Union…
Springer Nature has just reported that our book entitled “Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes“, included in the collection “Biomedical and Life Sciences”, is being highly successful within the scientific community. Since its publication in 2020, the book has received more…
A recent study challenges the idea that present-day Pyrenean landscapes are the result of large-scale anthropogenic deforestation and land degradation that occurred during the Middle Ages. High-resolution (decadal) pollen analysis of sediments from two lakes situated in the lowest (Montcortès)…
The book “The Prehistory of Rapa Nui (Easter Island): Towards an Integrative Interdisciplinary Framework” (Springer Nature), edited by V. Rull and C.M. Stevenson, has been sent to the press and will be issued early next year This book addresses the…
The current revival of Bernalism and the use of market-based scientific practices are undermining science as we know it. Read the full paper at: Rull, V. 2016. Free science under threat. EMBO Reports, 17: 131-135.
The Pyrenean Lake Montcortès sediments hold the longest continuous and absolutely varve-dated record of the Mediterranean region, encompassing the last three millennia, from the Late Bronze Age to the present. The high-resolution paleoecological reconstruction of the Montcortès sequence using pollen…
Some high-elevation Pyrenean forests remained virtually pristine during the last 4000 years Palynological analysis of the last ca. 4300 cal yr BP using a sediment core taken from high mountain (ca. 1900 m elevation) Lake Sant Maurici sediments (southern-central Pyrenees)…
Pyrenean landscapes were anthropized gradually, from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages, following a general elevational pattern, from lowlands to highlands. Human settlement, as derived from archaeological evidence, may occur much earlier than irreversible anhtropogenic transformation of landscape, as…