Research interests and current activities:

My current research interests and activities fall into five main categories.

Quaternary pollen analysis, vegetational history, quantitative palaeoecology, and palaeolimnology
Late-Quaternary vegetational and environmental history of Norway, Finland, Tibet, Qinghai, Switzerland, Scotland, and northern England. Active collaborators in this research include Andy Lotter (Utrecht), Heikki Seppä (Helsinki), Brigitta Ammann (Bern), Steve Brooks (London), Arvid Odland (Bø), Gaute Velle (Bergen), Anne Bjune (Bergen), Atle Nesje (Bergen), Richard Telford (Bergen), Jacqueline van Leeuwen (Bern), Kathy Willis (Oxford), Ulrike Herzschuh (Potsdam), and Yan Zhao (Lanzhou).

Theory of quantitative palaeoecology, palynological theory and practical techniques, quantitative reconstruction of past environments from palaeoecological data, numerical methods for the handling and analysis of Quaternary biostratigraphical data and of modern surface samples, and the use of randomisation procedures for testing palaeoecological hypothesis. Active collaborators include Richard Telford (Bergen), Gavin Simpson (London), and Steve Juggins (Newcastle).

Ecological palaeoecology and conservation palaeoecology, where palaeoecological data are used to provide long-term perspectives to ecological and conservation biological questions. Active collaborators are Kathy Willis and Shonil Bhagwat (Oxford), Anne Bjune (Bergen), and Mikael Ohlson (Ås).

Community plant ecology
Phytosociology and vegetational dynamics in Scotland and western Norway, community-environmental relationships, and the use of quantitative methods in community ecology, environmental monitoring, conservation evaluation, and biodiversity research. Active collaborators include Arvid Odland (Bø), Des Thompson (Edinburgh), and John-Arvid Grytnes (Bergen).

Impacts of recent climate change on ecological systems, particularly alpine systems. Collaobrators include Des Thompson (Edinburgh), Sarah Woodin and Louise Ross (Aberdeen), Gordon Rothero (Dunoon), David Long (Edinburgh), and John-Arvid Grytnes (Bergen).

Plant geography
Numerical approaches for the analysis of plant-geographical data from Europe, USA, British Isles, and Norden, the use of null-models in biogeography, and spatial data analysis. Active collaborators include Arvid Odland (Bø) and John-Arvid Grytnes (Bergen).

Bryology
Bryology is now largely a hobby but I still retain some research interests in the ecology and distribution of western oceanic bryophytes in the British Isles and western Norway, and in the bryophyte flora of the Isle of Skye.

Floristics
In addition to these research activities and interests, I maintain broad general botanical interests in floristics, plant ecology, and plant geography beyond the geographical areas of my particular research activities. In conjunction with Hilary Birks, I have field experience in the Austrian, Italian, Swiss, and Slovenian Alps, Mallorca, Portugal, Corsica, Andalucia (Spain), Canary Islands (Tenerife, Gran Canaria), Iran, Minnesota, Florida, Alaska and Yukon, the Canadian and American Rockies, the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon, Northern California, China, Bhutan, the Drakensberg Mountains in Southern Africa, the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia, Mount Kenya, NW India, Nepal, Tasmania, SE Australia, Tibet, South Island, New Zealand, and Patagonia. I have particular interests in certain plant genera including Saxifraga, Pedicularis, Draba, Penstemon, Woodsia, Trichomanes, and Carex. Hilary and I maintain an extensive collection of plant photographs of over 30,000 colour slides of plant portraits and close-ups, and a collection of over 15,000 colour slides of mountain landscapes and vegetational communities. Alpine plants are a particular interest and I have led botanical expeditions for the Alpine Garden Society to North America, South America, and the Himalaya. Examples of some of our photographs can be found on this website under Botanical Expeditions.

Other affiliations:
Besides being based in Bergen, I regularly visit the Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London (director Rick Battarbee) where I teach two graduate courses - Pollen Analysis (with Sylvia Peglar) and Numerical Analysis of Biological and Environmental Data (with Gavin Simpson). I am also affiliated with the PEARL group (director John Smol), Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

Other personal activities:
I serve on the editorial boards of Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology; Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, and Palaeoecology; Grana; Journal of Paleolimnology; Acta Palaeobotanica; Journal of Biogeography; Ecology and Plant Diversity, and Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. I am a member of the Advisory Board for the Development of Palaeoenvironmental Research series published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, and of the Editorial Board of the Ecology, Biodiversity and Conservation series published by Cambridge University Press.

Teaching:
I teach courses on Palaeoecology, Ecology, Pollen Analysis, and Quantitative Palaeoecology, at the University of Bergen, as well as occasional seminar series and some lectures on Introductory Botany.

I also teach two short courses at University College London on Numerical Analysis of Biological and Environmental Data and on Pollen Analysis.

I currently jointly supervise five doctoral students in Bergen. Some of this supervision is done jointly with Hilary Birks, John-Arvid Grytnes, or Torstein Solhøy. I also supervise a doctoral student in Aberdeen.

Other interests:
Besides field botany and plant photography, my main leisure activities are collecting and reading books on espionage, conspiracies, politics, and related topics, listening to baroque and early classical music, maintaining a massive collection of compact discs and books, and stamp collecting.

Publications:
Details of my recent publications are given on the EECRG web page with links to electronic versions where permissable. A full list of my publications since the 1960s can be found here as a pdf.