Amalava Bhattacharyya
Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences, Lucknow
Amalava Bhattacharyya retired as an emeritus scientist from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in 2012. He obtained BSc (Hons) in Botany from M.B.B. College, Tripura, and MSc from Science College, both under University of Calcutta. Later, he joined BSIP, Lucknow for research and was awarded PhD from the University of Lucknow in 1983. As a postdoc, for three years under Indo-US collaborative monsoon research program, he learned Dendrochronology from Tucson Arizona, USA. His research work is mainly on palaeoclimate based on pollen and tree ring data from the glaciated terrain of the Himalayan Region. He visited several countries, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, etc., under INSA and other research programs. He has visited Antarctica twice for his research work. He was involved as a project-in-charge in several DST sponsored projects. Seven scholars obtained PhD under his supervision. He has published more than 90 papers in both national and International journals and organised two international tree ring conference at BSIP.
Session 2C: Symposium: ‘Earth Science of the North-East’
Chairperson: R Ramesh, National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar
Changes of vegetation vis-à-vis climate since last several thousand years at North- East India View Presentation
The North-East states of India are not only significant strategically but also from a biodiversity point of view. It is a corridor of migration of plant taxa from the South-East Asia. Due to global warming, the entire region is facing increasing stress in terms of rapid changes in biodiversity. Pollen grains are known to be excellent biological proxy to understand past vegetation changes and climate. Pollen grains recovered from dated sediments could be translated in terms of extant vegetation and provide detailed environmental condition at the time of their incorporation. Their alterations, both qualitatively and quantitatively, provide a unique index for a particular type of vegetation, thus reflecting environmental and climate change. The speaker will present a review of palynological studies carried out from sites located in north-east India to unravel the past vegetation and climate change during the last several thousand years. The data reveals that a longer record of past vegetation dynamics with climatic changes is lacking in most parts of this region. To obtain this, high-resolution dated sediment profiles, along with quantitative analyses of pollen data covering more sites, need to be pursued to bring out the detailed vegetational history, vis-à-vis climate change.