Our scientific mission is to contribute to the understanding of climate change in the past (orbital forcing, solar forcing, human impact) by studying its impact on the biotic (vegetation) and abiotic (sediment transport) segments of the landscape on time scales from decades to the complete Quaternary. In multi-proxy studies analysis of  fossil pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, and plant macrofossils in sediment cores and peat monoliths are central. We study short term natural vegetation succession, impact of man on its environment (historical landscape ecology), and long term development of ecosystems (biomes) when evolutionary and geological processes are involved. Studies of patterns in plant distributions and diversity of Amazonian and Andean vegetation serve conservation and restoration, and calibration of fossil pollen records.

Thomas van der Hammen

Mentor of the PLE Research group, geologist and palaeo-ecologist Thomas van der Hammen sadly passed away on 10 March 2010. His studies have fundamentally changed our perception of the dynamic history of tropical ecosystems in South America.