School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology

Leona Burke

Leona Burke

Qualifications

MSc (with distinction) in Dating and Chronology, QUB (2010)
BSc (2:1) Archaeology and Palaeoecology, QUB (2009)

Postgraduate

Email: lburke07@qub.ac.uk

Address

School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology (GAP)
Queen’s University Belfast
Belfast, BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, UK

Telephone

+44 (0)28 9097 5287

Current Research: Environmental Change (EC)

The past as a key to the future of hyperdiverse ecosystems: modelling biodiversity variation and resilience through records of Late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change and human activity in Thailand.

Forecasting the effects that future climate change and/or human activity may have on certain species and ecosystems requires an understanding of how in the past they were affected by such changes. Within Asia the impact of climate change can already be seen, with many worrying what damage it will have to the economy, as well as the environmental consequences. Thailand’s climate is primarily controlled by the Asian monsoon system, which consists of the Indian (or Southwest Asian) monsoon (IOM) and the Southeast (or East) Asian monsoon (EAM). For this reason Thailand is an ideal location for examining the past affects of the Asian monsoon and how it impacted past ecosystems and individual species. However, climate change is not the only factor impacting the environment; increased human disturbance has become a major cause of change. This study aims to establish the fragility/resilience of the past ecosystems and species of Thailand, with the hope that the information produced can be used to develop future conservation plans for the region.

This study also provides us with a chance to expand our knowledge of the spread of agricultural in Asia. There has been little palaeoecological work carried out in Thailand, with the majority of our information being provided by the studies carried out Dan Penny and Bernard Maloney (although much of this information relates only to the northeast of the country). The data gathered by this study will hopefully provide more information on the human activity which was taking place in Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Previous work on the subject has been carried out by the department in Borneo which has indicated that people were moving plants around over huge distances right at the start of the Holocene as well as burning vast areas. This study will thus shed more light on human activity in Asia and added to the research which exists within the department.

Supervisors

Dr Chris Hunt (QUB)
Prof Paula Reimer (QUB)
Prof Barbara Wohlfarth (Stockholm University).