Lecturer in Physical Geography

Contact Details

• Tel: 0116 252 3833
• Email: jcb34@le.ac.uk
• Fax: 0116 252 3854
• Office: Bennett Building F45

Research Interests

My research interest focuses in to understand patterns of distribution and dynamics of tropical vegetation, the biogeographical control of different plant species and their relationships with main drivers of climate change. In order to investigate climate variability and environmental change, I do apply different proxies to study both long-and-short term sedimentary records from different tropical biomes. Most of the time is dedicated to trace such climate variations and vegetation changes at millennial and decadal to orbital time scales.

I conduct research in several Latin-American countries (Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela), in different ecosystems including the tropical rain forest (TRF) of the Amazon Basin and Chocó province, the inter-montane dry biomes, savanna ecosystem and its boundaries with TRF.

I am a member of the Leicester Quaternary Palaeoenvironments Research group. I am also a member of the Palaeoclimate Commission (PALCOMM) of INQUA.

Teaching

• (GY2313) Environmental Changes Through the Quaternary
• (GY3307) Global Environmental Change
• (GY3306) Neotropical Rainforests (Including a fieldtrip to the Amazon rainforest)
• (GY2309/10) Biogeography

External Activities

• I am a member of the Colombian Association of Palynology and Palaeobotany.
• Expert evaluator of the Programme Alβan (European Union Programme of High Level Scholarships for Latin America).
• Assistant coordinator for the Latin American Pollen Database (LAPD).

PhD Supervision

Current

• Rachel Downey - 'Innovative uses of GIS in the spatial and temporal reconstruction of neotropical past environments' (with Dr Nick Tate).

Completed

• Milton Romero-Ruiz - 'Analysis and monitoring of fire dynamics in the Colombian eastern plains using remote sensing' (with Dr Kevin Tansey).

Research Areas for PhD Supervision

Quaternary palaeoenvironmental reconstruction in the neotropics; tropical biogeography; Vegetation ecology, Quaternary environmental reconstruction and human interactions of tropical biomes.

• Physical Geography Research Themes

Enquiries: If you are interested in studying for a PhD in one of these research areas, please make informal enquiries via geogPhD@le.ac.uk

Most Recent Publications

Bogotá-A, R.G., Groot, M.H.M., Hooghiemstra, H., Lourens L.J., Van der Linden M. &  Berrio, J.C. (2011) Rapid climate change from north Andean Lake Fúquene pollen records driven by obliquity: implications for a basin-wide biostratigraphic zonation for the last 284 ka. Quaternary science Reviews 30 (23-24): 3321-3337.

Leal, A., Berrio, J.C., Raimundez, E., & B, Bilbao. 2011. A pollen atlas of premontane woody and herbaceous communities from the upland savannas of Guayana, Venezuela. Palynology, 35(2): 226-266.

Romero, M. H., Flantua, S.G.A., Tansey, K., & Berrio, J.C. 2011. Landscape transformations in savannas of northern South America: Land use/cover changes since 1987 in the Llanos Orientales of Colombia.
Applied Geography 32: 766-776.

M. H. M. Groot, R. G. Bogotá, L. J. Lourens, H. Hooghiemstra, M. Vriend, J.C. Berrio, et al. Ultra-high resolution pollen record from the northern Andes reveals rapid shifts in montane climates within the last two glacial cycles. 2011. Climate of the. Past, 7, 299-316.

Carr, A.S., Boom, A., Dunajko, A., Bateman, M.D., Holmes, P.J., Berrio, J.C., (2010) New Evidence of the Age and Palaeoecology of the Knysna Formation, South Africa. South African Journal of Geology, Volume 113.3 Page 241-256. doi:10.2113/Gssajg.113.3.241

Boom, A., Carr, A.,  Berrio, J.C. 2009. A century long record of Amazonian Miocene seasonal climate. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73 (13), 138. 

R. Marchant, S. P. Harrison, H. Hooghiemstra, V. Markgraf, J. H. van Boxel, T. Ager, L. Almeida, R. Anderson, C. Baied, H. Behling, J. C. Berrio, et al. 2009. Pollen-based biome reconstructions for Latin America at 0, 6000 and 18 000 radiocarbon years. Climate Past Discussions, 5, 369-461

González-Carranza , Z., Berrio, J.C., Hooghiemstra, H.,  Duivenvoorden, J., and H. Behling. 2008. Changes of seasonally dry forest in the Colombian Patía Valley during the early and Middle Holocene and the development of a dry climatic record for the northernmost Andes. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 152, 1-10

Sarmiento, G., Gaviria, S., Hooghiemstra, H., Berrio, J.C., and T. Van der Hammen. 2008. Landscape evolution and origin of Lake Fúquene (Colombia): Tectonics, erosion and sedimentation processes during the Pleistocene. Geomorphology 100, 563-575.

Gómez, A., Berrio, J.C., Hooghiemstra, H., Becerra, M., and R. Marchant. (2007). A Holocene pollen record of vegetation change and human impact from Pantano de Vargas, an intra-Andean basin of Duitama, Colombia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 145, 143-157.

Full listing of publications