Hello ecologists, Two of my students, Dulcinea Groff and Kit Hamley, are crowd-funding a research trip to the Falkland Islands in December, to conduct research. We'll be taking peat cores and examining fossils to investigate abrupt climate change, fire history (and potentially the timing of human arrival!), the enigmatic Falkland Islands wolf, terrestrial-marine linkages between seabirds and penguins, and the impacts of sheep grazing on native tussac grasses (you can get a lot out of peat cores!).
We need your help to make this trip happen. Please check out Dulcinea and Kit's Experiment.com project page here: https://experiment.com/projects/penguins-plants-and-people-getting-to-the-core-of-climate- change-in-the-falkland-islands?s=home These peat records are at risk of erosion due to sea level rise and grazing, so it's critical that we collect these records soon. We're partnering with the Falklands government, Falklands Conservation, and the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, so our results will be used to inform conservation and a healthy, integrated ecology and economy on the island (fisheries, sheep, and tourism are the main sources of income on the FI). Thanks for your support! Jacquelyn Gill & The BEAST* Lab *Biodiversity and the Environment Across Space and Time
