Biography
Positions
Education
Areas of Specialization:
Palaeoecology, lake sediments, Tasmania, Australia, pollen, charcoal, X-Ray Fluorescence geochemistry, carbon and nitrogen elemental and isotopic analysis, oxygen isotopes, cladocerans, diatoms, and sedaDNA
Research Interests:
Terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem dynamics; long-term climate impacts; Quaternary climate trends; wildfire impacts and pyrogeographical processes
Current & Future Research:
My primary research interests focus on the influences of long-term climate change and fire disturbance on terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem dynamics. Where I utilise palaeoecological approaches from multi-proxy datasets of pollen, charcoal, X-Ray Fluorescence geochemistry, elemental and isotopic analysis, cladocerans, diatoms, and sedaDNA along with radiometric dating to interrogate past environmental change. I am available for taking postgraduate students and undergraduate project students interested in these areas.
Current and Future Research: Climate-related processes and disturbances influence the relationship between terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem dynamics over the Quaternary, with particular interest in Canada and Australia. Processes, mechanisms and impacts of wildfire on freshwater systems.
I am available to postgraduate and undergraduate projects related to these topics.
Publications
Beck, K.K, Schuerch, M., Magnone, D., Aquino-Lopez, M.A., Gunning, K., Westlake, J., & Beckerton, S., (2024) Long-term impacts of embankments on coastal marsh vegetation and carbon sequestration, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 309, 108980
Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M.-S., Wolfe, B.B. & Sanders, K.M. (2023) Aquatic ecosystem response to climate, fire, and the demise of montane rainforest, Tasmania, Australia Global and Planetary Change, 223, 104077
Fletcher, M.-S., Pedro, J., Hall, T., Mariani, M., Alexander, J. A., Beck, K.K., Blaauw, M., Hodgson, D. A., Heijnis, H., Gadd, P. S., Lise-Pronovost, A. (2021) Northward shift of the southern westerlies during the Antarctic Cold Reversal Quaternary Science Reviews, 107189
Hannaford, M. J. & Beck, K. K. (2021) Past rainfall variability in southern and west-central Africa: do documentary and proxy sources agree? Climatic Change, 168:11
Fletcher, M.-S., Bowman, D.M.J.S., Whitlock, C., Mariani, M., Beck, K.K., Stahle, L., Hopf, F., Benson, A., Hall, T., Heijnis, H., & Zawadzki, A. (2021) The influence of climatic change, fire and species invasion on a southern temperate rainforest system over the past 18,000 years. Quaternary Science Reviews, 260, 106824
Lintern, A., Schneider, L., Beck, K. K., Mariani, M., Fletcher, M.-S., Gell, P., Haberle, S. (2020) Background concentrations of mercury in Australian freshwater sediments: the role of catchment’s physio-chemical parameters on mercury deposition Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene: Special Issue on Mercury, 8(1):019
Schneider, L., Shulmeister, N., Mariani, M., Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M.-S., Zawadzki, A., Saunders, K., Aquino-Lopez M. & Haberle, S. G. (2020) Colonialism and the environment: the anthropogenic legacies of the Southern Hemisphere's largest copper mine of the 20th century The Anthropocene Review, 1-21.
Beck, K.K., Mariani, M., Fletcher, M-S., Schneider, L., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H., Saunders, K.M. & Zawadzki, A. (2020) The impacts of intensive mining on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems: a case study from cool temperate Tasmania, Australia Environmental Pollution, 114695
Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M.-S., Gadd, P. S., Heijnis, H., Saunders, K. M. & Zawadzki, A. (2019) The long-term impacts of climate and fire on catchment processes and aquatic ecosystem response. Quaternary Science Reviews, 221, 105892.
Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M-S., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H., Saunders, K.M., Simpson, G. & Zawadzki, A. (2018b) Variance and rate-of-change as early warning signals for a critical transition in an aquatic ecosystem state: a test case from Tasmania, Australia. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeoscience, 123, 495-508.
Beck. K.K., Fletcher, M-S., Kattel, G., Barry, L., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H., Jacobsen, G., & Saunders, K.M. (2018a) The indirect response of an aquatic ecosystem to long term climate-driven terrestrial vegetation in a subalpine temperate lake. Journal of Biogeography, 45, 713-725.
Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M.S., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H. & Jacobsen, G. (2017) An early onset of ENSO influence in the extra-tropics of the southwest Pacific inferred from a 14,600 year high resolution multi-proxy record from Paddy’s Lake, northwest Tasmania. Quaternary Science Reviews, 157, 164-175
Beck, K.K., Medeiros, A.S. & Finkelstein, S.A. (2016) Drivers of Change in a 7300-Year Holocene Diatom Record from the Hemi-Boreal Region of Ontario, Canada. PLoS ONE, 11, e0159937.