Oral presentation: Rebecca Lellau

Caribbean ecosystems today are under pressure from climatic and land-use change. To gain empirical evidence of long-term (10-1000s years) resilience and dynamics within ecosystems, and reveal the legacies of past peoples in the landscape, palynological (pollen and spore) records obtained from sedimentary can be generated. In the Caribbean palynological identification is particularly challenging due to the high biodiversity, morphologically similar taxa, and the limited availability of comprehensive regional reference collections. To advance and facilitate palynological research in the Caribbean we present the “Atlas of pollen and spores from the Caribbean”, a new resource providing high-resolution transmitted-light microscopy images, concise morphological descriptions, and identification keys tailored for Caribbean taxa. It is hoped that this resource will empower future researchers within the region and facilitate work that will provide a better understanding of environmental change and cultural heritage in the region. The atlas compiles approximately 300 pollen and spore taxa from Caribbean islands and the wider Americas, developed through collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum (Canada), the University of the West Indies (Jamaica), CARMABI Herbarium (Curaçao), and by building on earlier regional identification efforts including the Bahamas pollen key (Snyder et al., 2007). 
This section offers a general introduction to pollen and spores as proxies, outlines the underlying methodology, and explains the scientific value of proxy identification.