Position:
Post-doctoral Researcher [Google Scholar]

 

Biography:

I am a Late Quaternary researcher focussing on landscape changes during the Holocene. My expertise is the use of multiple proxies such as pollen, charcoal, sediment physical and chemical characteristics to develop records of vegetation change, fire history and sediment processes. I have also worked with land-cover reconstruction (REVEALS) models and spatial interpolation models to develop land-cover change maps. Through a multidisciplinary approach, I collaborate with archaeologists, historians and climate modellers to develop an understanding of human-environmental interactions during the Holocene in different landscapes. We have developed land-cover reconstructions for Europe for the last 11700 cal BP to provide reliable estimates of land-cover change that can be used for climate modelling.

2018 – 2021 Land and Climate Interactions in Europe (LandClimII)
At Linnaeus University and Lund University in Sweden, I was involved in the development of quantitative land-cover reconstructions using the ‘Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites’ (REVEALS) model for Europe. We produced the first quantitative pollen based land-cover covering the Holocene (last 11,700 cal yr BP) using >1100 pollen records from across Europe and part of the Eastern Mediterranean-Black Sea-Caspian-Corridor. We have reconstructed the cover of 31 plant taxa assigned to 12 plant functional types (PFTs) and three land-cover types (LCTs). We also presented a new synthesis of relative pollen productivities (RPPs) for 45 European plant taxa was performed for this reconstruction. The data from this project is available in Pangaea (LandClimII 2021).

2013 – 2017 Resilience in East African landscape
My doctoral research focussed on East African landscape responses to climate change and human impacts so as to better understand how they may respond to future climate change and human impacts. A multi-proxy approach analysing pollen, macro-charcoal, sediment characterisation
and elemental profiles was used to develop new palaeoecological records and reveal environmental changes since the late Pleistocene-Holocene transition period from Mau Forest and since the mid-Holocene from Amboseli. (Holocene Environmental and human interactions in East Africa.”

Career CV:

March 2020-January 2021: RESEARCHER IN LATE QUATERNARY PALAEOECOLOGY, Lund University Lund, Sweden

March 2018-February 2020: POST DOC IN LATE QUATERNARY PALAEOECOLOGY, Linnaeus University, Sweden

November 2013-November 2017: Marie Curie EARLY STAGE RESEARCHER, University of York York, United Kingdom

Peer Reviewed Publications:

Githumbi EN, Courtney Mustaphi CJ, Marchant R. 2021. Sedimentological, palynological and charcoal analysis of the hydric palustrine sediments from the Lielerai-Kimana wetlands, Kajiado, southern Kenya. Palaeoecology of Africa 35, pp.107-126.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781003162766-8

Githumbi, E., Fyfe, R., Gaillard, M.J., Trondman, A.K., Mazier, F., Nielsen, A.B., Poska, A., Sugita, S., Theuerkauf, M., Woodbridge, J. and Azuara, J., 2021. European pollen-based REVEALS land-cover reconstructions for the Holocene: methodology, mapping and potentials. Earth System Science Data Discussions, pp.1-61.

Githumbi E, Courtney Mustaphi C, Marchant R. 2021. Late Pleistocene and Holocene Afromontane vegetation variability at a headwater wetland within the Eastern Mau Forest, Kenya. Journal of Quaternary Science 36(2), 239-254. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.3267

Githumbi, E., Marchant, R. and Olago, D., 2020. Using the Past to Inform a Sustainable Future: Palaeoecological Insights from East Africa. In Africa and the Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 187-195). Springer, Cham.

Gallego-Sala A, Charman D, Brewer S, Page S, Prentice IC, Friedlingstein P, Moreton S, Amesbury M, Beilman D, Björck S, Blyakharchuk T, Bochicchio C, Booth R, Bunbury J, Camill P, Carless D, Chimner R, Clifford M, Cressey E, Courtney-Mustaphi C, De Vleeschouwer R, de Jong R, Fialkiewicz-Koziel B, Finkelstein S, Garneau M, Githumbi E, Hribjlan J, Holmquist J, Hughes P, Jones C, Jones M, Karofeld E, Klein E, Kokfelt U, Korhola A, Lacourse T, Le Roux G, Lamentowicz M, Large D, Lavoie M, Loisel J, Mackay H, MacDonald G, Makila M, Magnan G, Marchant R, Marcisz K, Martínez Cortizas A, Massa C, Mathijssen P, Mauquoy D, Mighall T, Mitchell FJG, Moss P, Nichols J, Oksanen PO, Orme L, Packalen M, Robinson S, Roland T, Sanderson N, Sannel AB, Silva-Sánchez N, Steinberg N, Swindles G, Turner TE, Uglow J, Väliranta M, van Bellen S, van der Linden M, van Geel B, Wang G, Yu Z, Zaragoza-Castells J, Zhao Y. 2018. Latitudinal limits to the predicted increase of the peatland carbon sink with warming. Nature Climate Change 8: 907-913.

Githumbi E, Kariuki R, Shoemaker A, Courtney Mustaphi C, Chuhila M, Richer S, Lane P, Marchant R. 2018. Pollen, people and place: paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and ecological perspectives on vegetation change in the Amboseli landscape, Kenya. Frontiers in Earth Science 5 Article 113: 1-26. DOI: 10.3389/feart.2017.00113

Marchant R, Richer S, Boles O, Capitani C, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Lane P, Prendergast M, Stump D, Wynne-Jones S, Ferro Vázquez C, Wright D, Boivin N, Lang C, Kay A, Phelps L, Fuller D, Widgren M, Punwong P, Lejju J, Gaillard-Lemdahl M-J, Morrison KD, Kaplan J, Benard J, Crowther A, Cuní-Sanchez A, de Cort G, Deere N, Ekblom A, Farmer J, Finch J, Gillson L, Githumbi E, Kabora T, Kariuki R, Kinyanjui R, Kyazike E, Muiruri V, Mumbi C, Muthoni R, Muzuka A, Ndiema E, Nzabandora C, Olago D, Onjala D, Pas Schrijver A, Petek N, Platts PJ, Rucina S, Shoemaker A, Thornton-Barnett S, van der Plas G, Watson L, Williamson D. 2018. Drivers and trajectories of land cover change in East Africa: human and environmental interactions from 6000 years ago to present. Earth-Science Reviews 178: 322-378.

Githumbi EN*, Courtney Mustaphi CJ*, Yun KJ, Muiruri V, Rucina SM, Marchant R. 2018. Late Holocene wetland transgression and 500 years of vegetation and fire variability in the semi-arid Amboseli landscape, southern Kenya. Ambio – A Journal of the Human Environment 47(6), pp 682–696. *equal contribution  [Phys.org summary]

Hawthorne D*, Courtney Mustaphi CJ*, Aleman JC*, Blarquez O, Colombaroli D, Daniau A-L, Marlon JR, Power M, Vannière B, Han Y, Hantson S, Kehrwald N, Magi B, Yue X, Carcaillet C, Marchant R, Ayodele O, Githumbi EN, Muriuki RM. 2018. Global Modern Charcoal Dataset (GMCD): a tool for exploring proxy-fire linkages and spatial patterns of biomass burning. Quaternary International 488, 3-17.
*equal contribution

Courtney Mustaphi, CJ, Githumbi, EN, Shotter, LR, Rucina, SM, Marchant, R. 2016. Subfossil statoblasts of Lophopodella capensis (Sollas, 1908) (Bryozoa: Phylactolaemata: Lophopodidae) in the Upper Pleistocene and Holocene sediments of a montane wetland, Eastern Mau Forest, Kenya. African Invertebrates 7(1): 39–52. doi: 10.3897/afrinvertebr.57.8191. [Data available]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charcoal Processing at York.

 

Colin and Esther transferring core section.