Carole Adolf

Carole Adolf

I am interested in applied palaeoecology, especially relating to the development of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. More specifically, my research focuses on quantitative reconstructions of past fire occurrence and plant biodiversity distributions on continental scales. The results of quantitative palaeoecological reconstructions on large spatial scales can be implemented in a range of models and are important to make palaeoecological-data more readily available for end-users such as stakeholders and policy makers.

At Oxford University I am focusing on the study of ecosystem resilience and disturbance thresholds in the Tropics, as well as the integration of palaeoecological data into species distribution modelling approaches. For this purpose, I use pollen and charcoal records from lake-sediment sequences from Africa and South America and combine them with remote-sensing data and models.

Selected Publications

William J Harvey, Sandra Nogué, Nathan Stansell, Carole Adolf, Peter R Long, Kathy Willis, 'A palynological perspective on the impacts of European contact: Historic deforestation, ranching and agriculture surrounding the Cuchumatanes Highlands, Guatemala,' Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 30 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00790-2

C Adolf, C Tovar, N Kühn, H Behling, JC Berrío, G Dominguez-Vázquez, B Figueroa-Rangel, Z Gonzalez-Carranza, GA Islebe, H Hooghiemstra, H Neff, M Olvera-Vargas, Bronwen Whitney, MJ Wooller, KJ Willis, 'Identifying drivers of forest resilience in long-term records from the Neotropics,' Biology letters 16(4) 2022. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0005

Marcisz, K., Lamentowicz, M., Gałka, M., Colombaroli, D., Adolf, C. & Tinner, W. (2019) Responses of vegetation and testate amoeba trait composition to fire disturbances in and around a bog in central European lowlands (northern Poland). Quaternary Science Reviews, 208, 129–139.

Gil-Romera, G., Adolf, C., Benito, B.M., Bittner, L., Johansson, M.U., Grady, D.A., Lamb, H.F., Lemma, B., Fekadu, M., Glaser, B., Mekonnen, B., Sevilla-Callejo, M., Zech, M., Zech, W. & Miehe, G. (2019) Long-term fire resilience of the Ericaceous Belt, Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Biology Letters, 15, 20190357.