Plant Conservation Unit research looks to the past for the future

Timm Hoffman, one of the African Climate & Development Initiative’s (ACDI) affiliates, has been part of the Plant Conservation Unit (PCU) since 2001. Originally from the Eastern Cape, Hoffman has conducted his research in several parts of South Africa, as well as the United States, and was eventually appointed to be the Leslie Hill Chair of Plant Conservation at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2001. He chairs the PCU alongside the Deputy Director, Associate Professor Lindsey Gillson, who joined them in 2006. Gillson is currently working on projects in South African biomes, focusing particularly on long-term vegetation dynamics of ecotones.

PCU was established in 1993, originally as the Institute for Plant Conservation, and forms part of UCT’s Department of Biological Sciences.  The unit aims to be a world-class, African-centred research and postgraduate training unit that improves the ecological understanding of Africa's biomes, the pressures facing them and the opportunities for conservation that benefits both biodiversity and people. They ultimately try to understand plant conservation in the context of landscape change, using a wide range of disciplines including ecology, environmental history, palaeoecology, and social sciences.  PCU has several unique projects that contribute to their success. Not only do they have their own palaeoecology laboratory and fossil pollen reference collection, but their repeat photography database is the first of its kind in Africa. Additionally, since 1995 the PCU has maintained a long-term research site at Paulshoek, a communal area in Namaqualand, where they have maintained crucial partnerships with local, regional and international networks.

ACDI currently offers support to the PCU through the Benchmarks for the Future project. The following PhD projects are being undertaken as part of this project that aims to help establish pre-colonial benchmark conditions of the vegetation of the savanna, grassland, nama-karoo, succulent karoo and fynbos biomes:

• A PhD project by Nqabutho Dabengwa, under supervision of Associate Professor Lindsey Gillson and Emeritus Professor William Bond, called Exploring the use of Palaeoecological Proxies along Altitude, Rainfall and Herbivore Gradients in the KwaZulu-Natal Province.
  “Biomes are dynamic entities in space and time. Thus, understanding their spatial patterning and governing dynamics in the last 2000 years when human population intensification began in Southern Africa is an important and often neglected aspect in conservation, land-use planning and management.  My study in KwaZulu-Natal uses microfossils which include charcoal, dung spores, phytoliths and stable isotopes to reconstruct fire patterns, herbivore abundance and tree-grass dynamics respectively along altitude, rainfall and herbivore gradients across the grassland and savanna biomes in KwaZulu-Natal. The study will better our understanding of how humans, environmental disturbance and climate drivers affect vegetation, hopefully untangling their complex interactions.”

• A PhD Project by James MacPherson under supervision of Associate Prof Lindsey Gillson and Prof Timm Hoffman, called Plant Community Organisation in the Cape Floristic Region. 
  “Community ecology is concerned with how biological organisms are related to each other. Species respond individually or as a unit to environmental change. Because these changes take a long time, I am using the fossil record to test whether, when and why individual or unit responses happen.”

• A PhD Project by James Puttick under supervision of Prof Timm Hoffman and Dr Tim O’Connor, called The Extent, Rate and Drivers of Change Across Grassland, Savanna and Forest Boundaries in Eastern South Africa Over the Last Century.
  Collaborating Institutions: National Research Foundation and the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON).
  “Woody plants have increased significantly in cover over the last 100 years.  The aim of this research project is to quantify the nature, extent and rate of vegetation change and to establish which drivers best explain the observed patterns of change.  Drivers include change in temperature, rainfall and the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere as well as changes in land use practices such as grazing, fire and woodfuel harvesting.”

Finally, as part of the ACDI-funded Berg River Climate Knowledge Network, a PCU student is also conducting a study on land cover in the Berg River region.

• A PhD Project by Petra De Abreu under supervision of Prof Timm Hoffman, Dr Frank Eckhardt, Dr Gina Ziervogel, Associate Prof Martine Visser and Prof Mark New called Long-Term Land Use/Land Cover Change in the Groot Winterhoek Mountain Catchment and Greater Berg River Municipal Boundary in Response to Climate and Socio-Economic Drivers.
  Collaborating Institutions: CapeNature and the Western Cape Provincial Department.
  “The primary objective of this project is to understand how the broad socio-ecological systems of the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area have changed over the last century in response to both local-global climatic, land use and socio-economic drivers so as to inform policy and practice under future climate, land use and development settings.  This study adopts an environmental history approach and documents the nature, extent and rate of change within a range of environmental, biological and abiotic variables within the Groot Winterhoek catchment area and Greater Berg River Municipal boundary.”