I have a first-class Bachelor’s degree in Botany from Nigeria, with a major in palaeobotany and palynology. I also hold a distinction Master’s degree in Biology from Canada, with a major in forest ecology and palaeoecology. I have recently completed a PhD in archaeology and natural history in Australia, with a major in landscape palaeoecology and conservation palaeoecology.
My work involves the use of fossilized plant pollen and spores, charcoal, macrofossils, and non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) to reconstruct past ecosystem changes and associated interactions with changes in fire regimes, human land use and climate. I am interested in understanding how long-term changes in climate and human land use have shaped vegetation, wetlands, and fire regimes in landscapes, and the application of this deep-time knowledge to present-day ecosystem conservation and management frameworks. I am also interested in the application of robust quantitative methods to analyze large palaeo-datasets (pollen and charcoal records) to understand past vegetation community changes and resilience in response to past climatic shifts and human land use from regional to global scale.
My work has involved reconstructing wetland and vegetation developmental history in Pacific Canada temperate forests and tropical west Africa during the late glacial and Holocene. My current research is focused on temperate Australia and it involves understanding how Indigenous people and past climatic changes have shaped ecosystems (vegetation and wetlands) and fire regimes in different parts of the region (especially in the higher latitudes of Bass Strait and mainland Tasmania) through the last glacial to the Holocene.
mattadeleye 