News

Professor Jennifer McElwain and Dr Sate Ahmad presented at the iCRAG Conference 2022 on the 1^st of December 2022 at Croke Park, Dublin. Professor McElwain gave an overview of research under the Earth System Change pillar of the Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG) in the context of Ireland’s declaration of a climate and biodiversity crisis. Dr Ahmad talked about how elevated CO₂ in the future may change ecohydrological response through changes in plant physiology. In total, 200 participants attended the event, several of whom were from the Botany Department.

The 11^th European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference was held 19-22 June at the Swedish Natural History Museum and Stockholm University. Over the course of the conference, over 170 oral presentations and over 60 poster presentations were given, as well as 2 pre-conference workshops. The first plenary talk of the conference was given by Prof. Vivi Vajda, Prof. Steve McLoughlin and Dr. Olena Shevchuk on the war in Ukraine and its impact on palaeobotany, palynology, natural history collections and museums. The final plenary talk was given by Prof. Catarina Ryan on the diversity, pollination and survival of the Gnetales. Two members of the plant-climate interaction group were participants at the conference: Prof. Jennifer McElwain hosted a pre-conference workshop and gave the second plenary talk on using palaeotraits to map ecosystem function and Earth system processes in the deep past, and Bea Jackson had a poster presentation on reconstructing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations during the Devonian using Sawdonia fossils.

The 11th European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference Abstracts, Program and Proceedings Volume is available here.

The annual iCRAG summit took place on the 21^st and 22^nd of June, in Athlone. Dr Sate Ahmad and Dr Weimu Xu, took part in the meeting. It was the first in-person iCRAG summit since the pandemic and since iCRAG 2 started, with around 70 attendants from all iCRAG-associated research institutions. It is an excellent opportunity to learn about the Centre’s recent activities, research updates, and future plans. The summit provided several workshops on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Education and Public Engagement, and Funding Opportunities. The Summit was also a great social platform for iCRAG members, including an engaging team-building session.

The 11^th TCD Botany-Zoology Postgraduate Research Symposium (@TcdZobo) was held in the Botany Lecture Theatre on the 9^th and 10^th of June. The Symposium gives postgraduate students an opportunity to present their current research.

The two keynote speakers and judges for the event were Dr. Anthony Heijenga and Dr. Katie O’Dwyer.

Two members of the plant-climate interaction group were among the 24 students presenting this year. Midori Yajima presented her work on the Trinity College Botanic Garden long term environmental monitoring program and Bea Jackson presented her work on reconstructing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations during the Devonian using fossil plants.

Congratulations to this year’s symposium winners Elena Zioga, Katrin Schertenleib and Niamh Mc Cartan for their really impressive and interesting work, and thank you to the Postgraduate Symposium Committee Diego Bianchi, Kate Harrington, Richa Marwaha, Floriane O’Keeffe and Niamh Mc Cartan for organising such a fantastic event.

Jenny McElwain took part in a two day workshop in June 2022 (4^th to 7^th) held by the CO2-PIP project in Lake Tahoe California. CO2-PIP is a new community project for quantifying atmospheric CO₂ over the Phanerozoic. It is led by Isabel Montañez, UC Davis, Dana Royer, Wesleyan University, Daniel Breecker, University of Utah; Gabriel Bowen, University of Texas and Bärbel Hönisch, Columbia University and funded by the National Science Foundation.

The project aims to modernize and standardize published proxy CO₂ records and build on successful community research of paleo-co2.org, which focused on the Cenozoic. Jenny will actively contribute to the CO2-PIP project by making raw data from published stomatal-based proxy CO₂ records from  the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic available following F.A.I.R. principles, by updating old proxy CO₂ records that require new statistical modelling approaches (forward proxy modelling) and though the co-development of education material on atmospheric evolution and the carbon cycle.