Projects
Please visit our research pages for current project information: Department of Biodiversity & Systematic Biology
Palaeozoic floristics
We are currently working on the key stratigraphical interval around the Westphalian - Stephanian boundary. This is the time when the Late Carboniferous tropical rain forest habitat was collapsing, which seems to have influenced global climates. The work includes systematic treatments of key floras, such as from Radstock (Somerset) and Point Aconi (Cape Breton). It is also hoped to extend this work through into the eastern sectors of the European belt of coal forests. In collaboration with Wang Ziqiang, C. Cleal is studying a late Westphalian flora from the Benxi Formation, North China and to the eastern forests of China. Other parameters for assessing changes in past climates and atmospheres being investigated are carbon isotopes and stomatal densities.
Palaeozoic plant functional morphology
C. Cleal (with C. H. Shute, Natural History Museum) is looking at the detailed epidermal anatomy of cyclopterid leaflets from the base of Laveinopteris fronds (Carboniferous medullosalean pteridosperm). Cuticles are revealing many microscopic structures, which may represent adaptations to life in a tropical rain forest.
Fossil floras from the Westphalian red-beds of the English Midlands
C. Cleal (with B. Besly) is working on the vegetation preserved in the late Westphalian red beds of the English Midlands, which were traditionally known as the Keele Formation. The work involves an analysis of the change with time of the plants preserved in these beds, which is helping refine the correlation with similar-aged strata in Britain and elsewhere in Europe and N. America. It is also providing an insight into the vegetational changes occurring at this time, when the tropical forests were being drained as a result of tectonic uplift.
Jurassic floras
C. Cleal (with P. M. Rees, Open University) is working on a Jurassic impression flora from Stonesfield (Oxfordshire). This classic flora has been mostly ignored in the recent literature because of the perceived lack of cuticles. However, in addition to its historical interest (during the early 19th century, it was regarded as the most important British flora of this age) it has a considerable
Geological Conservation Review
C. J. Cleal (with B. A. Thomas, University of Wales, Lampeter) is working on the second palaeobotany volume of the Geological Conservation Review series, on behalf of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. This is reviewing the most important Mesozoic and Tertiary plant fossil sites in Britain, placing them in a regional and global context. They include the world-famous sites for the Yorkshire Jurassic and Eocene London Clay floras, but also represented are sites reflecting the eveolution of vegetation in Britain between the late Triassic and early Neogene.
Pollen deposition in arctic-alpine environments
Some of the most valuable and widely available evidence that we have for past vegetation and climate change is based on pollen data. Pollen is constantly deposited in lakes and peat bogs, producing, effectively, a continuous record of past vegetation change that can be thousands, or tens of thousands of years long. Even though a great deal is known about fossil pollen, relatively little is known about the present day relationship between vegetation and pollen deposition but a clear understanding of this relationship is essential if we are to fully understand past vegetation change. Arctic-alpine environments are potentially the best sources of modern analogues for Late-glacial and early Holocene plant communities. Extensive research is being conducted on patterns of surface pollen deposition on glacier foreland in southern Norway and also in a range of plant communities in Spitsbergen.
European Pollen Monitoring Programme
The European Pollen Monitoring Programme (EPMP) is a new initiative aimed at increasing the precision with which pollen analysts can interpret fossil pollen diagrams. The Programme is a Working Group of the Holocene Commission of the International Quaternary Association (INQUA). The aims of the Programme are 1) to study patterns of pollen influx across natural and anthropogenic treelines, 2) to look for pollen assemblages that are characteristic of a range of forest types across Europe and 3) to improve our understanding of the quantitative relationship between vegetation communities and the pollen they produce.
Already there are more than 22 transects established across Europe. Heather Pardoe and Heather Tinsley are the two British co-ordinators of the Programme. They have transects set up in Snowdonia, West Wales, the Forest of Dean and on Exmoor. Heather Pardoe is co-ordinating a meeting of EPMP participants in Cardiff in April 2000.
Research on the collections of botanical illustrations at National Museums & Galleries of Wales
The Department holds a superb collection of some 9000 prints and drawings, from professional engravings to amateur watercolours. In recent years this collection has been the focus of a great deal of work - initially Departmental staff undertook a major conservation programme. This project inspired a large exhibition of the illustrations under the title "The Paradise Garden". A book of the same title was produced. The preparation of the exhibition and the book brought to light much new information about the collection and the development of botanical illustration in general. This research is being continued by Maureen Lazarus and Heather Pardoe.
