Objective
A critical question in Earth system science is what was the impact of prehistoric people on the biosphere and climate? There is much information about human impact through clearance, agriculture, erosion, and modifying water and nutrient budgets. Humans have greatly changed the Earth in the last 8000 years, but did humans modify the major ecological processes (e.g. assembly rules) that shape community assembly and dynamics? Did inter-relationships between processes change in response to human impact? Lyons et al. & Dietl (2016 Nature) suggest that human activities in the last 6000 years had such impacts. Dietl proposes that using past ‘natural experiments’ to predict future changes is “flawed” and “out is the use of uniformitarianism”. As using natural experiments is a common strategy and uniformitarianism is the major working concept in Earth sciences, it is imperative to test whether prehistoric human activity changed major ecological processes determining community development. To test this hypothesis, patterns in pollen-stratigraphical data for the past 11,500 years from over 2000 sites across the globe will be explored consistently using numerical techniques to discern changes in 25 ecosystem properties (richness, evenness, and diversity; turnover; rates of change; taxon co-occurrences, etc.). Patterns in these properties will be compared statistically at sites within biomes, between biomes, within continents, and between continents to test the hypotheses that prehistoric human activities changed the basic ecological processes of community assembly and that their inter-relationships changed through time. These areas provide major contrasts in human prehistory and biomes. HOPE is interdisciplinary: pollen analysis, databases, multivariate analysis, ecology, new statistical methods, numerical simulations, statistical modelling. HOPE’s impact goes beyond human effects on the biosphere and extends to the very core of Earth science’s basic conceptual framework.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2016-ADG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
5020 Bergen
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.