I am interested in applied palaeoecology, especially relating to the development of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. More specifically, my research focuses on quantitative reconstructions of past fire occurrence and plant biodiversity distributions on continental scales. The results of quantitative palaeoecological reconstructions on large spatial scales can be implemented in a range of models and are important to make palaeoecological-data more readily available for end-users such as stakeholders and policy makers.

At Oxford University I am focusing on the study of ecosystem resilience and disturbance thresholds in the Tropics, as well as the integration of palaeoecological data into species distribution modelling approaches. For this purpose, I use pollen and charcoal records from lake-sediment sequences from Africa and South America and combine them with remote-sensing data and models.

Selected Publications

Marcisz, K., Lamentowicz, M., Gałka, M., Colombaroli, D., Adolf, C. & Tinner, W. (2019) Responses of vegetation and testate amoeba trait composition to fire disturbances in and around a bog in central European lowlands (northern Poland). Quaternary Science Reviews, 208, 129–139.

Gil-Romera, G., Adolf, C., Benito, B.M., Bittner, L., Johansson, M.U., Grady, D.A., Lamb, H.F., Lemma, B., Fekadu, M., Glaser, B., Mekonnen, B., Sevilla-Callejo, M., Zech, M., Zech, W. & Miehe, G. (2019) Long-term fire resilience of the Ericaceous Belt, Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Biology Letters, 15, 20190357.

Colombaroli , D , Mistry , J , Milner , A , Vannière , B , Adolf , C, Hawthorne , D & Global Paleofire Working Group (GPWG2). DiverseK : integrating paleoecology, traditional knowledge and stakeholders. 2018, Past Global Changes Magazine , vol. 26 , no. 2 , pp. 89 .https://doi.org/10.22498/pages.26.2.89

Colin J. Courtney-Mustaphi, D. Colombaroli, B. Vannière, C. Adolf , L. Bremond, J. Aleman and the Global Paleofire Working Group (GPWG2). African fire histories and fire ecologies. doi.org/10.22498/pages.26.2.88

Adolf, C., D. Hawthorne, and D. Colombaroli (2019), Ancient fires and indigenous knowledge inform fire policies, Eos, 100, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO118871. Published on 22 March 2019.

Adolf, C., Doyon, F., Klimmek, F. & Tinner, W. (2018) Validating a continental European charcoal calibration dataset. The Holocene, 28, 1642–1652.

Adolf, C., Wunderle, S., Colombaroli, D., Weber, H., Gobet, E., Heiri, O., van Leeuwen, J.F., Bigler, C., Connor, S.E., Gałka, M., La Mantia, T., Makhortykh, S., Svitavská-Svobodová, H., Vannière, B. & Tinner, W. (2018) The sedimentary and remote-sensing reflection of biomass burning in Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 27, 199–212.

Beffa, G., Pedrotta, T., Colombaroli, D., Henne, P.D., van Leeuwen, J.F., Süsstrunk, P., Kaltenrieder, P., Adolf, C., Vogel, H., Pasta, S., Anselmetti, F.S., Gobet, E. & Tinner, W. (2016) Vegetation and fire history of coastal north-eastern Sardinia (Italy) under changing Holocene climates and land use. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 25, 271–289.

Gilgen, A., Adolf, C., Brugger, S.O., Ickes, L., Schwikowski, M., van Leeuwen, J.F.N., Tinner, W. & Lohmann, U. (2018) Implementing Microscopic Charcoal Particles Into a Global Aerosol-Climate Model. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 1–42.