1st October 2003 – 30th September 2006
NERC
In the context of future climate change, the presence of non-linearity in the Earth system has received considerable attention. In addition to changes in physical processes (e.g. thermohaline circulation), non-linearity also effects biological systems, such as vegetation communities because of the complexity of inter species and species-climate interactions, as well as local environment and historical factors. An inherent feature of non-linear changes is their reduced predictability. As responses are not easily extrapolated from current observations, the geological record may provide an insight into the sensitivity of vegetation communities to different scales of climate variation.