BUSH, Mark B

Mark B BUSH}

Contact Information

Professor
Biological Sciences Department
College of Science
Harris Center, 220
Phone: 7166
Email: mbush@fit.edu

Web & Social Networking

College of Science

Biological Sciences Department

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Research & Project Interests

Successful conservation of tropical biodiversity requires that we understand the mechanisms controlling habitat and species distributions. Two potent forces induce changes in these distributions: climate change and human activities. My research uses paleoecology to understand the changing patterns of tropical biodiversity. Through the study of fossil pollen, diatoms and charcoal, we reconstruct the history of habitats in tropical South America. These paleoecological records allow us to reconstruct climate change over the last 200,000 years and relate it to patterns of biodiversity, speciation and human occupation. From these observations, we contribute to the current debate on global climate change and species conservation.

To gain these data, we must locate and visit ancient lakes in the neotropics. The lake sediments hold a history of the surrounding landscape since the formation of the lake. A core of those sediments provides us with a complete history of that location. We raise the cores using a backpackable coring rig. As many of these lakes lie in some of the most remote locations on Earth, the ?eldwork is arduous and not for the faint-hearted. Although the coring is an important and exciting facet of our work, the great majority of our time is spent in intensive lab work counting and identifying the fossil pollen and statistically analyzing the resultant data.

Our study sites include Guatemala, Amazonia, the Andes of Peru and Ecuador, and the Galapagos Islands. Although spanning a large geographic area, the linking theme is in trying to understand how climatic events, such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and mega-droughts in?uenced natural and human communities. Our study of Lake Titicaca has provided a 340,000 year (four glacial cycles) record of climate changes and shows how changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun caused changes in climate. Our studies reveal that modern temperature change is happening 10–100 times faster than any parallel event of the last 50,000 years. These data raise serious questions about the ability of species to migrate to counteract current and future climatic change. Studies of younger lakes have provided the earliest documented corn cultivation in Amazonia, evidence of a sequence of megadroughts within the last 11,000 years, and the collapse of native societies at the time of European contact.

I have published two books Ecology of a Changing Planet, which provides an introduction for undergraduates to applied ecology, and Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climatic Change aimed at a more specialized readership.

For more information go to www.fit.edu/biology/bushlab.

Keywords

Andes
Applied Ecology
Biodiversity
Cloud Forest
Conservation
Fossil Pollen
Paleoecology
Plant Community Ecology
Tropical Forests

Professor
Biological Sciences Department, College of Science

Educational Background

B.Sc. University of Hull, U.K.
M.S. Duke University
Ph.D. University of Hull, U.K.

Professional Experience

Postdoctoral Fellow, The Ohio State University
1987 - 1991

Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama
1991 - 1992

Assistant Professor in the Practice of Botany, Duke University
1992 - 1996

Editorial Board Global Ecology and Biogeography
2000 - 2006

Editor Journal of Biogeography
2004 - present

Current Research

We are working on the fossil pollen history of Lake Peten-Itza in Guatemala to resolve the vegetation and paleoclimatic history of the Yucatan Peninsula. We are wrapping up a long-standing interest in the history of Lake Titicaca, Peru/Bolivia, and are starting a new wave of research in the Peruvian Andes to look at the long-term dynamics of the tree-line in that region. We are also engaged in investigations of the influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation on the climate history of the Galapagos Islands and Amazonia. Lastly, we are investigating the role that native South and central American people played in altering their environment prior to European arrival.

Selected Publications

Bush, M. B., Correa-Metrio, A., Hodell D.A., Brenner, M., Ariztegui, D., Anselmetti, F. S., Gilli, A., Burton, C., and A. D. Muller. in press. The Last Glacial Maximum: Central America. In F. Vimeaux, F. Sylvestre, and M. Khodri, editors. Past climate variability from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene in Central America and surrounding regions. Springer, Paris.

Raper, D. and M.B. Bush, in press A test of Sporormiella representation as a predictor of megaherbivore presence and abundance. Quaternary Research.

Conroy, J.L., Restrepo, A., Overpeck, J.T., Steinitz-Kannan, M., Cole, J.E., Bush, M.B. and P.A. Colinvaux, 2009. Unprecedented recent warming in the eastern tropical Pacific. Nature Geosciences.

Hillyer, R., Valencia, B. G. , Bush, M.B., Silman, M.R. and M. Steinitz-Kannan. 2009. A 24,700-year paleolimnological history from the Peruvian Andes. Quaternary Research 71: 71-82.

Bush, M. B., Silman, M.R., McMichael, C. and S. Saatchi. 2008. Fire, climate change and biodiversity in Amazonia: a Late-Holocene perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363:1795-1802.

Gosling, W.D., Bush, M.B. , Hanselman, J.A. and A.J. Chepstow-Lusty. 2008. Glacial-Interglacial changes in moisture balance and the impact on vegetation in the southern hemisphere tropical Andes (Bolivia/Peru). Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 259:35-50.

Bush, M.B. and Silman, M.R. In press. Amazonian exploitation revisited: Ecological asymmetry and the policy pendulum. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Bush, M.B. and Flenley, J.R. 2007. Tropical Rainforest Responses to Climate Change. Praxis, Chichester.

Bush, M.B. and Lovejoy, T.E. 2007. Amazonian conservation: pushing the limits of biogeographical knowledge. Journal of Biogeography 34: 1291-1293.

Bush, M.B., Silman, M.R., de Toledo, M.B., Listopad, C.R.S., Gosling, W.D., Williams, C., de Oliveira, P.E. and Krisel, C. 2007. Holocene fire and occupation in Amazonia: Records from two lake districts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Ser. B.
362: 209-218

Bush, M.B. and Weng. C. 2007. Introducing a new (freeware) tool for palynology. Journal of Biogeography 34: 377-380.

Hanselman, J.A., Gosling, W.D., Paduano, G.M. and Bush, M.B. 2005. Contrasting pollen histories of MIS 5e and the Holocene from Lake Titicaca (Bolivia/Peru). Journal of Quaternary Science 20, 663-670.

Bush, M.B., Silman, M.R. and Urrego, D.H. 2004. 48,000 years of climate and forest change in a biodiversity hotspot. Science 303: 827-829.