PhD: Determining the legacy of long-term anthropogenic impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services in Belize

Investigations of Classic Maya land use often cite a paradigm of landscape degradation and poor environmental stewardship that is popularised by authors like Jared Diamond. Although tropical forests have a long history of human impact, the development of a sustainable management framework for their current conservation requires a more nuanced understanding of how the modern forest has been shaped by past human activities. This project will set out to establish the anthropogenic history tropical forest in Ambergris Caye, Belize, where the ancient Maya heavily exploited these forests before European arrival.

The aim of the project is to reconstruct classic Maya land-use in Belize using a combination of empirical data (i.e., fossil pollen and charcoal) and landscape modelling techniques. Pollen dispersal and deposition models, used extensively in Europe and North America, will be parameterised for tropical forest vegetation to test different scenarios of past land cover using the ‘Multiple Scenario Approach’ (MSA). The MSA simulates potential scenarios informed through archaeology, which are then tested individually against pollen data from sediment cores to determine the most realistic land cover scenarios and create spatially explicit landscape reconstructions. Spatial and temporal differences in past land use will be compared to palaeoenvironmental indicators of ecosystem health, such as biodiversity (pollen richness) and soil stability (particle size), to inform current management of tropical lowland forest resources.

Potential candidates with experience in palaeoecology or environmental archaeology and who have a familiarity with pollen, phytolith and/or charcoal analyses are especially sought. The student will be supervised by Dr Bronwen Whitney (palaeoecology), Prof. Ulrich Salzmann (palaeoecology), Dr Samantha Jones (ecosystem services), Department of Geography, Northumbria University. Liaison with additional partners at University of Reading and University of Hull will support the student in developing and achieving research objectives.