PAHIS-Paleoecology and Historical Ecology

Presentation

The PAHIS team aims to reconstruct the environments and communities of organisms at various chronological resolutionsto better understand the organisation of current ecological systems and their dynamics. To achieve this, PAHIS adopts a an approach based on the study of the long term and theanalysis of the time dimension to promote sustainable land management.

These approaches are deployed along a hydroclimatic transect stretching from the Mediterranean basin to the Central Asian mountains to include the study of the impact of global change on the diversity of local contexts.

 

 

Research topics

The Team

Leader of the PAHIS team
MCF-Maitre de Conferences
Leader of the PAHIS team
CR-Research charge
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Dahvya Belkacem-Doume
ITA-Engineer Administrative Technician
Alberte Bondeau
CR-Research charge
Pauline Bosio
DC-Doctoring
Eliane Charrat
ITA-Engineer Administrative Technician
Wolfgang Cramer
DR-Research Director
Morteza Djamali
CR-Research charge
Emma Gamba
DC-Doctoring
Emmanuel Gandouin
MCF-Maitre de Conferences
Cléa Gillet
DC-Doctoring
Frederic Guibal
CR-Research charge
Frederic Guiter
MCF-Maitre de Conferences
Cecile Latapy
DC-Doctoring
Laureline Leclerc
DC-Doctoring
Marion Lestienne
PD-Post Doctorant
Michelle Leydet
ITA-Engineer Administrative Technician
Bérangère Leys
CR-Research charge
Frederic Magnin
CR-Research charge
Frederic Medail
PR-Professor
Cecile Miramont
MCF-Maitre de Conferences
Philippe Ponel
CR-Research charge
Brigitte Talon
MCF-Maitre de Conferences
Robin Veyron
DC-Doctoring
Irene Xueref-Remy
AST-Astronomist or Physicist

Collaborations

Photo gallery

Sediment coring at Pourra pond (PACA, France) to reconstruct the history of vegetation and fire.

The PAHIS team has long specialised in reconstructing past environments aims to explore new contexts for this new four-year period, covering a variety of time scales (e.g. Quaternary, Holocene, Anthropocene, last millennium, last century) and little-studied territories (particularly in Provence, the global South, including the Maghreb and South-West and Central Asia).

Multi-archive study (dendrochronological and sedimentary coring) to characterise the seismic hazard in Kyrgyzstan.

The PAHIS team uses a wide range of environmental archives (lake sediments, soils, wood subfossils, bioarchaeological material) and cutting-edge techniques to reconstruct ecosystems of the past.. This multi-disciplinary team includes geomorphologists, sedimentologists, palynologists, dendrochronologists, anthracologists, entomologists, malacologists and geochronologists, who work in close collaboration. They use and develop conceptual and technical approaches (sedimentary and dendrochronological coring, physico-chemical analyses, bioindicators, radiocarbon dating) in conjunction with the SC Chrono platform.

The Palace of Ardashir, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Iran, is an example of a socio-ecosystem that has been highly anthropised for two millennia.

We know that ecosystems have evolved under the impact of two major forcings: climate variations and human activities. The PAHIS team is trying toassess the role of changes and palaeohydrology in terms of frequency and intensity, at scales of action that vary greatly in space and time, and that of ancient human activities according to their type, age and chronology, in order to measure the relative interactions of these two forcings. What influence have they had on the evolution of ancient socio-ecological systems? How can we analyse their consequences and their relative impact on current and future structures and dynamics? To carry out this work, the team works closely with archaeologists and historians wherever possible (Archéozoologie et Archéobotaznique - Sociétés, Pratiques et Environnements- (UMR 7209 MNHN-CNR), Centre Camille Julian - UMR 7299 AMU-CNRS), both in the field and throughout the data analysis process.

ROMCLIM' multi-agent modelling to understand the impact of climate change on agricultural production potential in the 1st and 6th centuries A.D. This innovative approach, developed in collaboration between IMBE, CEREGE and ISEM, establishes a link between climate and society by studying agricultural production as a fundamental socio-economic factor in ancient societies (Bernigaud, Bondeau, Guiot, et al., 2024. PLOS ONE).  

The functioning of ecosystems is also approached through the diachronic analysis of indicators and trajectories, by identifying recurring events, cyclicities, tipping points, and so on.. We aim to highlight the mechanisms associated with these changes, such as threshold and buffer effects, and also to contextualise current processes (characterisation of baselines and deviations from these baselines). Finally, key environmental variables are reconstructed using multi-proxy modelling, such as elemental geochemistry. versus bioindicators (pollen, charcoal, fossil insects) and mechanistic modelling of socio-ecological interactions, such as changes in land use and practices, with past and future climate change.