3,233 research outputs found
Gerhard Lang (21.10.1924–19.6.2016)
No full textGerhard Lang, one of the great German botanists and palaeoecologists of the 20th century, died on the 19th June 2016 in Biberach, southern Germany. He will be greatly missed by his friends and colleagues, not only for his vast expertise in botany, ecology, biogeography, and vegetation history, but also for his integrity, kindness, and humour. For many of his students and post-doctoral fellows he was not only an excellent teacher and mentor, but also an important role model
Audiomobiles, Sculptures and Conundrums
No full textRoberto Gerhard was a pioneer of electronic music in England creating a number of substantial concert, theatre and radio works from as early as 1954. Gerhard’s electronic music is one of the richest repositories for understanding the development of the composer’s late compositional technique. Apart from the Symphony no.3, ‘Collages’, none of Gerhard’s electronic music is published. This paper will discuss aspects of Gerhard’s electronic music, focusing on Audiomobiles (1958-59) and Sculptures (1963)
Causes of glacial-interglacial vegetation dynamics
No full textGlacial and interglacial stages
Only a few examples of arboreal plants are discussed in this book and even less attention is brought to herbaceous species. Refining the existing substantial gaps will need further research efforts, for example with regard to taxonomic resolution of herbaceous species that may come with new techniques, such as aDNA approaches. Nevertheless, our overviews in chapters 2, 3 and 4 already show an extremely varied picture of the spread of floristic elements during the Holocene and also during other interglacials. In the end, each plant species has its own history, including the herb flora. It is also clear that similar ranges of the species today do not mean similar range histories (Lang, 1971). Roughly, with regard to the glacial–interglacial cycles, the conditions that controlled the occurrence of plant species over such long periods can be divided into five groups; Birks and Tinner, 2016)
Development of European lakes
No full textAlongside the few ‘exotic’ environmental archives, such as coprolites (Kelso and Solomon, 2006; Yll et al., 2006), soils (Andersen, 1986) or ice cores (Azuara et al., 2015; Brugger et al., 2018a) the greatest natural archives for biological remains on the continents are the sediments in lakes and the peat of mires. For physical and chemical records ice cores and stalagmites also play important roles.
The challenges, opportunities and risks with using lakes and mires as natural archives for tracing environmental history arise from the fact that both the local and the regional signals are simultaneously embedded in the sediment or the peat. Lakes and mires ‘write down’ their own histories. If we are able to read these ‘autobiographies’ and if we can connect them to the regional histories we may understand the relevant processes behind biotic changes at several scales. The precondition is that in the biotic record we can separate local events from regional ones.
For the study of vegetation history an estimate of the sedimentation rate is relevant, because it controls the temporal resolution that can be achieved and thus the sampling strategy for a specific question
Soil development and vegetation dynamics
No full textHow can soil development be traced?
Pedology has a number of ways to derive the history of soil types, for example chronosequences but what methods does palaeoecology offer?
1. Indicator taxa: Iversen (1954, 1958), Gaillard (1984), Kuneš et al. (2011) and others used indicator taxa recorded as pollen and/or plant macrofossils interpreting a shift from pioneer taxa to late-successional taxa as largely indicating a development from raw soils to various types of mature soils. Conclusions on soil moisture can be drawn based on macroremains of indicator taxa (Birks, 2015).
2. Geochemistry of the sediment: independent of biostratigraphies certain elements of the sediment (Willis et al., 1997; Braun et al., 2005) or stable isotopes such as δ13C (Hammarlund et al., 1997) may indicate a shift in soil type.
3. Nitrogen-fixing taxa: Hippophaë and Alnus played a role, but see also Hu et al. (2001), Kuneš et al. (2011), Ammann et al. (2013)
Roberto Gerhard: explorer and synthesist
No full textThere is a general perception that Gerhard’s late, modernist, style was due to a radical change of direction around the time of his First Symphony. This thesis argues that in fact several important elements integral to this ’new’ style are traceable in works as early as Dos apunts and Seven Haiku of 1921-22, and that during the intervening years Gerhard was exploring, expanding and accumulating the techniques which eventually enabled him to realise the potential of his sonic imagination.
The first part of the thesis will discuss Gerhard’s origins in early twentieth century Catalonia, during the Catalan revival, with its modernisme and noucentisme, and the way in which these factors are reflected in his attitudes.
In the second section the works selected will be placed in a biographical and musical context and analysed in order to demonstrate three aspects of his works. The first is that Gerhard approached each one as a separate exercise, using different methods in the most appropriate manner and disregarding questions of dogma. The second, that many of these techniques originate in the practices of the preceding generation, particularly Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Pedrell and Bartók, in addition to absorbing and applying significant elements from Catalan and Spanish traditional music. Comparators will be cited to demonstrate these facts. The final intent is to show that as the methods are applied they are explored and expanded to meet his own particular requirements and the resulting synthesis equipped him to realise their potential in his late style, fully exploited for the first time in the first movement of the First Symphony.
This thesis deals with compositions preceding this work in order to demonstrate that despite the apparently disparate nature of Gerhard’s output between 1921 and 1953 there is a consistent attitude in his approach extending into the later stages of his life
History of the Quaternary vegetation sciences
No full textUnder the roof of geology, palaeontology is a strong branch within which the discipline of palaeobotany has been established. This discipline encompasses the evolution and differentiation of plant families and species. The term was also initially applied to the study of the development stages of the modern flora and vegetation and is still sometimes used in that way. For better clarification, however, it should strictly be used only for pre-Quaternary times, where it mainly includes the botanical investigation of the Tertiary. Instead the term Quaternary Botany might be used. The term vegetation history has now become widely accepted for the chronological development of the modern flora and vegetation
Treeline and timberline dynamics
No full textPolar treeline and timberline
Today’s polar treeline runs along the northernmost part of Fennoscandia and further along the northern edge of the Kola Peninsula and the northern Russian mainland. In continental northern Russia the limit of tree growth (>2–3 m growth height) lies only slightly to the north of the Arctic Circle (66°32’ N) and is formed by Picea abies ssp. obovata, while in oceanic Fennoscandia it goes beyond 71° N and consists of Betula pubescens ssp. tortuosa. South of the polar treeline, dwarf shrub tundra, open birch stands and isolated birch and pine forests form vegetation mosaics. These parklands build the forest tundra and are bordered to the south by closed Pinus sylvestris forests that form the polar timberline (or forest limit) between 69° and 70° N. The polar treeline and timberline represent heat-deficiency limits, whereby, as a rough rule, the minimum for the existence of conifer trees (>2–3 m) is assumed to be 30 days per year with a temperature average above 10°C (e.g. Walter and Breckle, 1986). The global polar treeline has also been associated with growing seasons of 90– 106 days and seasonal mean temperatures between 5.1 and 6.9°C, similar to other treeline positions in the world (6.4 ± 0.7°C; Körner, 2012)
Palaeoecological materials and methods
No full textThe spectrum of methods used in Quaternary palaeoecology and vegetation history is very broad and can only be briefly summarized in this chapter. A number of more detailed books and book chapters exist for various specific topics. A comprehensive introduction by Birks and Birks (1980), reprinted in 2004, offers much more than methods: namely principles, research questions and results. Decades ago the need to standardize methods across Europe was felt and, within the International Geological Correlation Programme, the project on Palaeohydrology (IGCP 158a on rivers, IGCP 158b on lakes) first produced a handbook on methods edited by Berglund (1986), reprinted in 2003, and subsequently a synthesis by Berglund et al. (1996a). These, in turn, led to the establishment of the European Pollen Database (EPD). More recently two new major methodological sources have become available: (1) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments now published in the Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research series, especially volumes 1, 3 and 5 and (2) the sections about pollen and plant macrofossils in volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (2007 and 2nd edition in 2013 edited by S.A. Elias and C.J. Mock).
Methods help to address the basic questions of ‘where’, ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘why’ did changes in flora and vegetation occur? In other words, what and where are the natural archives, how do we extract botanical information from them, how can we develop a chronology and what processes may explain the changes (or the stability)? Answers to these questions will help to formulate the next research questions of why, where and how to continue. Concise introductions to the principles are offered for pollen analysis by Seppä (2007a, 2013) and for plant macrofossil analysis by H.H. Birks (2007a, 2013), Jackson and Booth (2013) and Birks (2014)
Paloma Ortiz-de-Urbina (ed.), Arnold Schönberg und Roberto Gerhard: Briefwechsel, Berna, Peter Lang, 2019
No full textRessenya del llibre Paloma Ortiz-de-Urbina (ed.), Arnold Schönberg und Roberto Gerhard: Briefwechsel, Berna, Peter Lang, 2019.Book review of Paloma Ortiz-de-Urbina (ed.), Arnold Schönberg und Roberto Gerhard: Briefwechsel, Berna, Peter Lang, 2019.Reseña del libro Paloma Ortiz-de-Urbina (ed.), Arnold Schönberg und Roberto Gerhard: Briefwechsel, Berna, Peter Lang, 2019
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