Boosting Neotoma through the European Pollen Database to gain a better understanding of long-term whole ecosystem change
Aims
The main aim of this INQUA-funded workshop is to start the process of creating a multi-proxy European representation in the Neotoma database (www.neotomadb.org) that will harness the power of Neotoma as a tool facilitating multi proxy data analyses, populate Neotoma further and engage in collaborative research.
In view of this long-term objective, we will introduce European palaeoecologists to the Neotoma database, develop ideas for cross-continental multi-proxy data analysis, and develop a COST-application to pursue this community effort. We would be pleased if we could stimulate populating the Neotoma database with already existing palaeoecological data sets for Europe. To meet these aims, attendants will be introduced to the Neotoma data-extraction and data-handling toolboxes, and in addition will receive training to join the active Neotoma Data Stewards community.
Latest news, accommodation details and practicals.
We are looking forward to meet you in Prague! Before our meeting, you may find this document useful. In it you will find details about the venue, transport, accommodation, lunches, posters and more! we would like to draw you attention to some final details:
1. For those of you with your accommodation supported by PAGES, you can see your accommodation assignation here. We however advice you to come first to the reception desk on Wednesday 1st at 1pm so we give you all the needed information to get there and will update the room numbers if necessary. In addition, at this welcoming desk we will provide you with a public transport ticket, valid for three days, for you to connect between the conference venue and the accommodation area (ca. 45′ by transport, all details are in the previous section document).
2. We have finalized now the workshop assignation, see here. The Chronology and Tilia workshops will run only once (Thursday and Friday respectively). You will be contacted by the workshop organizer in case anything is required before the conference. Please note that all workshops require you having your own laptop and for most you need to have R and R-Studio installed. If you are interested in following the Tilia workshop note that this is a windows program and can only be installed on a Windows PC or Windows emulator.
3. If you are presenting a poster, remember to prepare one single slide summarizing it and be ready to give a 1minute flash talk of it. You will have to hand out this slide at the welcoming desk on Wednesday the 1st from 1 to 2pm.
4. During the poster session we invite you to bring sweets and snacks or drinks typical from your country of origin to share with the rest of us.
5. Those of you attending the BBQ on Friday, be ready to pay at the welcoming desk (either in CZK or EUR) from 5 to 10€ to cover the food costs – there is not a fixed amount and we leave it to your own appetite 🙂 Drinks can be bought on location.
We are excited to invite you to an in person Open Science Meeting in Prague between the 1st and 3rd of June 2022. With this meeting we aim to maintain and foster the community of palaeoecologists using the EPD and Neotoma for data storage and analysis. Therefore, we like to bring together palynologists and researchers using different proxies that may be archived in Neotoma (macrofossils, sedaDNA, charcoal, geochemistry, isotopes).
We are preparing exciting three days filled with interesting keynotes, workshops and discussions. Attendants will have the opportunity to showcase their research during a poster session with a short plenary oral highlight of the main finds. We have some social events such as an open-air barbecue, and an art and science tour. The venue will be the Faculty of Science of the beautiful Charles University in Prague.
Please note that we will only have a live meeting if the Covid situation allows us to meet in person in Prague and will cancel otherwise. Please organize your travel arrangements accordingly.
Registration is now closed, deadline for registration was 1st of May 2022. Should you have any questions, please write an email to:
We strongly recommend participants to register but attendance will be possible with no previous registration. In the later case, joining a workshop will only be possible if there is still space and booking accommodation through the EPD organizing committee will not longer be possible.
1. Program
To explore the most updated program, please click here.
2. Confirmed speakers
Jack Williams“Why Neotoma? Supporting Science at Local to Global Scales”
Danielle Schreve“Move, adapt or die: Late Pleistocene and early Holocene vertebrate datasets from Britain.”
Jan Kolář: “Plants or humans of the past? Do we really need to choose what to study?”
Elizabeth Dietze: “The future of the Global Paleofire Database”.
Kasia Marcisz: “Testate amoebae in multi-proxy palaeoecological studies”
Cindy De Jonge: “Biomarker lipids as temperature proxies: what are global calibrations hiding?”
Inger Greve Alsos“High taxonomic resolution of sedimentary ancient DNA allows detailed reconstruction of postglacial species arrival and ecosystem build-up”
Leeli Amon: “The last deglaciation and local-scale vegetation dynamics”
Thomas Giesecke (you can also check here) “Introduction and historical perspectives of the EPD”
Ulrike Herzschuh“Sedimentary ancient DNA – from population to ecosystem-level reconstructions”
Patrik Mráz: “Herbarium collections as a tool for tracking global change“
Heikki Seppä: “Identifying problems using continental-scale modern pollen databases for climate reconstructions”
3. Workshops
(Each participant can attend two workshops)
Chronology-building using the EPDby Petr Kuneš and Graciela Gil-Romera.
Tilia: individual sites and data upload by Michelle Leydet and Graciela Gil-Romera.
Quantitative land-cover reconstructionsby Martin Theuerkauf and Vojtěch Abraham.
Neotoma R by Socorro Domínguez.
Non Pollen Palynomorphsby Lyudmila Shumilovskikh.
CharAnalysis for Rby Walter Finsinger.
An introduction to quantitative climate reconstructions in R by Basil Davies.
On November 15 we lost a good friend, a brilliant scientist and pioneer in striving for open shared scientific data. Eric Grimm’s passing leaves a large empty space in our hearts.
Eric is known worldwide to the palynological community as the maker of the “Tilia” program to manage pollen data and produce pollen diagrams. He was a key driver behind the creation of pollen databases; he helped establish our European Pollen Database and supported our work over the years. His knowledge of different aspects of palaeoecology, plant taxonomy and computer programming was combined in his contribution and lasting legacy, the palaeoecological database Neotoma.
We also remember Eric for his passionate discussions of new ideas and findings. He supported palynologists worldwide in countless workshops, teaching them how to best create pollen diagrams, understand their data and work with pollen databases. He showed patience and enthusiasm for individual problems and was indefatigable in finding solutions.
Beyond this, Eric enriched many workshop evenings with stories of fieldwork and science history based on his immense and irreplaceable experience. He will be greatly missed by our community as a leader, a scientist and a friend.
News from the workshop (3-7/11/2017) in Göttingen, Germany
Background/History: The EPD was designed in the time before email and WWW as a Paradox database that would have a master copy on one particular computer with one person able to make changes to the database and distribute copies of it. The old system uses DOS programs to upload sites and the Paradox format itself is outdated. Discussions on how to continue with the database system started after the open meeting in 2007. Continue reading “Porting EPD into Neotoma, first steps…”
2) Charcoal software and database: Boris Vannière and Walter Finsinger
3) EPD Surface samples and modern analogue reconstructions: Basil Davis and Marco Zanon
4) Quantitative vegetation reconstructions using the Landscape Reconstruction Algorism (PPEs, REVEALS, LOVE) Petr Kuneš, Ralph Fyfe and Martin Theuerkauf
5) An introduction to Non Pollen Palynomorphs and help with pollen identification: Jean Nicolas Haas, Benjamin Dietre and Steffen Wolters
6) Using the EPD with ‘R’: Alistair Seddon and Joseph Chipperfield
7) Age depth modelling and EPD chronologies: Thomas Giesecke
A Symposium in memory of Armand Pons (25/01/2013, Marseille, France)
Armand Pons, born in 1931, died this year in January 2012. This meeting is organised to celebrate a major pioneer of modern Palynology and Palaeoecology in France and to make a point on the state of the art in the fields he started to explore 50 years ago. Find and download the program at symposium_armand_pons_2013.pdf
EPD activities, news, blog 