This book addresses the main enigmas of Easter Island’s (Rapa Nui, in the Polynesian language) prehistory from the time of initial settlement to European contact with a multidisciplinary perspective. The main topics include: (i) the time of first settlement and…
Blog Archives
The Prehistory of Easter Island
Tagged with: archaeology, biogeography, Botany, climate, deforestation, Drought, Easter Island, ecology, Enigmas, history, moai, paleoclimate, paleoecology, Raapanui, Rapa Nui, Transpacific Voyaging
Posted in archaeology, biodiversity, Books, My publications
Posted in archaeology, biodiversity, Books, My publications
Integrity
Grigoriy Perelman (St Petersburg, 13 June 1966) is a mathematician who refused the Fields Medal – considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics – and a Clay Mathematics Institute‘s million-dollar prize for solving the Poincaré conjecture, one of the seven Millennium…
A new perspective on the origin of Neotropical mangroves
Mangroves are forested ecosystems that dominate tropical and subtropical coasts all over the world. Currently, these ecosystems are thought to have originated in the Cretaceous, on the coasts of the former Tethys Sea, and evolved into divergent Paleotropical and Neotropical…
Tagged with: Caribbean, Cretaceous, Eocene, evolution, mangrove forests, mangroves, Neotropics, palynology, Pelliciera, pollen, tea mangrove
Posted in My publications
Posted in My publications
Restoration paleoecology
Paleoecological records are useful in that they inform ecological restoration efforts by not only providing the most suitable pre-anthropic baselines, but also identifying unrealistic and unfeasible restoration targets due to climatic, cultural, and economic constraints In a short paper recently…
Tagged with: anthropization, Azores, biodiversity, climate change, conservation, Easter Island, Gran Sabana, paleoclimates, paleoecology, preanthropic, Pyrenees, restoration
Posted in My publications, Society
Posted in My publications, Society
Inductive predictions in biology
Is biology able to formulate general laws and develop inductive predictions as in physics or chemistry? The possibility of using prediction in biology as an inductive method is hampered by the lack of fundamental laws that can be formulated mathematically.…
Tagged with: accomodation, Biology, chemistry, Dark matter, evolution, fundamental laws, generalization, Higgs bosson, hypothesis testing, inductive prediction, mathematics, Mendeleev, Periodic law, Periodic table, physics, prediction
Posted in My publications, Science, Society
Posted in My publications, Science, Society
Cannabis origin, evolution and domestication
In a paper that is about to be published in the journal Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, the origin, early dispersal, human domestication and anthropogenic diffusion of Cannabis are reviewed and discussed. According to DNA phylogenies, Cannabis diverged…
Tagged with: Caucasus, diffusion, dispersal, domestication, drug, Europe, hemp, hemp Cannabis, Iberian Peninsula, Middle Ages, Miocene, Oligocene, origin, Pleistocene, retting, Tibetan Plateau
Posted in Cannabis, My publications, Sin categoría
Posted in Cannabis, My publications, Sin categoría
A new special issue on forest succession
The journal Forests (JIF 2.364, Q1) is launching a new special issue (SI) entitled Forest Succession: Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers of Ecological Change. The main aim of this SI is to provide an overview of forest successional processes and their…
Tagged with: anthropogenic proxies, biodiversity, climate, climatic proxies, conservation, ecology, Forests, last centuries, last millennia, long-term, paleoclimate, paleoecology, palynology, past, present, succession, successional drivers, trees
Posted in Journals, special issues
Posted in Journals, special issues
World’s Top 2% Scientists
Stanford University has recently published an update of the list of the top 2% most widely cited scientists, the World’s Top 2% Scientists. This ranking, considered the most prestigious worldwide, is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database…
Tagged with: bibliometry, citations, paleonology, palynology, scientific ranking, world's top 2% scientists
Posted in My publications, Science
Posted in My publications, Science
Antoni Rosell-Melé
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…
Tagged with: biomarkers, climate change, organic chemistry, paleoceanography, Pleistocene, Pliocene
Posted in People, Science
Posted in People, Science
Is the sixth mass extinction coming?
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…
Tagged with: anhtropogenic extinction, biodiversity, biodiversity crisis, extinction, last centuries, mass extinction, sixth mass extinction
Posted in anthropocene, biodiversity, My publications, Society
Posted in anthropocene, biodiversity, My publications, Society
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