Vegetational and climate changes in Eastern Amazonia during the last 600 kyrs

• Grant number: 23/01667-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: June 01, 2023
• End date: February 18, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences
• Principal Investigator: Paulo Eduardo de Oliveira
• Grantee: Caio Alves de Moraes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências (IGC). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/23899-2 - Trans-Amazon Drilling Project: origin and evolution of the forests, climate, and hydrology of the South American tropics, AP.PFPMCG.TEM

Abstract

This project proposes to reconstruct vegetation and climate of eastern Amazonia by examining pollen, spores, Carbon, and N isotopes in sediments deposited in the Marajo sedimentary Basin during the last 6 glacial cycles by addressing various vegetational, climatic, and biogeographical hypotheses that have been proposed to the last 40,000 years. The Trans-Amazonian Drilling Project will allow, for the first time in the history of Brazilian science, quaternary palynologists to extend our understanding of vegetational and climatic changes in the Amazon beyond the LGM and extend its history into the last 6 glacial cycles. One central question regarding the future of Amazonia is: how resilient is the Amazon biota under multiple phases of global climatic change? The proposed analyses will also shed light, not only on resilience aspects, but also on the ecological processes that must have taken place on the Amazonian section of the Brazilian continental shelf as it became exposed during glacial phases by reducing global sea levels. A total of 10 hypotheses, concerning climatic, vegetational, ecological, and biogeographical aspects are proposed with their corresponding testing methods. This study will provide scientists a unique opportunity to find out if our current and partial understanding of the last glacial cycle of the Amazonian landscape, known in the Northern Hemisphere as the Würm/Wisconsin glaciation, has a correspondence in other glacials of the neotropical region.