As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect moment to celebrate achievements, welcome new faces, and look forward to the exciting opportunities that lie ahead. Celebrating Success of…Read More >

The SPECIAL group was pleased to welcome Sander Veraverbeke to give a guest seminar at the University of Reading in mid-November. Sander is an Associate Professor at the VU in…Read More >

In exciting news – PI Sandy Harrison has secured, alongside international colleagues, a new SYNERGY grant titled EcoARCH! EcoARCH stands for Ecological Archaeologies of the Afrotropics and will investigate human,…Read More >

Earlier in September this year the LEMONTREE Project hosted the second iteration of the Energy Partitioning Workshop (you can read about the first meeting of the consortium here). The LEMONTREE…Read More >

The IMFIREDUP (Improved Modelling of FIRE: Development, Understanding and Prediction) consortium came together once again in September 2025 (see here for the blog on our original meeting last year) for a…Read More >

When we think about how our planet’s ecosystems respond to change, we often focus on temperature and rainfall. But there’s another, equally critical player: carbon dioxide (CO2) that has largely…Read More >

One of the main SPECIAL team projects is the LEMONTREE project. Every year the LEMONTREE project has an annual meeting, hosted by one of our partner institutions. At the end…Read More >

How can the deep past help us understand today’s climate crisis? A new review in Annual Review of Environment and Resources (led by S.P.E.C.IA.L. group PI Sandy Harrison) pulls together…Read More >

Fire and herbivory are two of the biggest consumers of biomass on Earth, having major impacts on vegetation distribution. Fire, a natural and often necessary part of many landscapes, consumes…Read More >

Earlier this month, SPECIAL team member Wenyao Gan had the opportunity to attend the ICCS summer school in Cambridge. The ICCS summer school was an inspiring and intensive programme that…Read More >