In the Canadian forest service, pollen is studied mainly from the reproductive perspective. The exception is my lab in Edmonton, where the main focus of pollen work is Holocene vegetation change.

Current projects are focussed mainly on the southern boreal forest and aspen parkland of western Canada. In the parkland, there is a particular problem of lakes drying out, sometimes seasonally, sometimes for longer periods. These playas are often highly saline, and pollen taphonomy in playas is an ongoing secondary research theme.

Another theme is the effects of anthropogenesis in the last 150 years. Although there was very little European settlement in most of the western Canadian Prairie until the late 1800's, anthropogenesis has been felt through the overhunting of bison, and possibly through the beaver fur trade.

A third theme is fire ecology, involving investigations of fire regime through quantification of sedimentary charcoal, and also through identification of the charcoal by Scanning Electron Microscopy. In conjunction with pollen analysis of the same sediments, it is hoped that we will be able to answer the chicken and the egg problem of the relationship between conifers and forest fire.

Finally, the pollen record is also being used to investigate past vegetation responses to climate change, which is the primary mandate of the lab. Since we are interested in the vegetation response, we must have independant information on the climate changes themselves; this is being provided by a number of other proxy data types, including oxygen isotopes (in co-operation with Tom Edwards at Waterloo), grain size (in co-operation with Celina Campbell at University of Alberta), mineralogy (in co-operation with Bill Last at University of Manitoba), diatoms (in co-operation with Michael Hickman at University of Alberta) and varve thicknesses where we have them.

In addition to pollen, our lab also studies tree rings using an X-ray densitometry system we developed over the past two years, and is involved in simulation modelling of forest development and succession.

Recent publications:

Campbell, I. D., 1995. Power function for interpolating dates in recent sediment. Journal of Paleolimnology, In Press.

Campbell, I. D., and J. H. McAndrews, 1995. Charcoal evidence for Indian-set fires: a comment on Clark and Royall. The Holocene, In Press.

Campbell, C., I. D. Campbell, C. B. Blythe, and J. H. McAndrews, 1994. Bison extirpation may have caused aspen expansion in western Canada. Ecography 17(4): 360-362.

Campbell, I. D., and C. Campbell, 1994. Pollen preservation: experimental wet-dry cycles in saline and desalinated sediments. Palynology 18: 5-10.

Campbell, I. D., and C. Campbell, 1994. The impact of late woodland land use on the forest landscape of southern Ontario. Great Lakes Geographer 1(1): 21-29.

Campbell, C., I. D. Campbell, and E.H. Hogg, 1994. Lake area variability across a climatic and vegetational transect in southeastern Alberta. Géographie physique et Quaternaire 48(2): 207-212.

Campbell, I. D., and G. L. Chmura, 1994. Pollen distribution in the Atchafalaya River, U.S.A. Palynology 18: 55-65.

For further information, please contact: Ian D. Campbell

*Present address: Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, 12th floor, 580 Booth St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0E4, Canada
 

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Note: This article originally appeared in CAP Newsletter 18(2):7-8, 1995. Address updated September 14 2001.