Beerling, David 1965- (D.J. Beerling)

PERSONAL:

Born June 21, 1965. Education: University of Wales College of Cardiff, B.Sc. (with honors), 1987, Ph.D., 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England; fax: 0114-222-0002. E-mail—d.j.beerling@sheffield.ac.uk.

CAREER:

University of Wales, Cardiff, research assistant, 1990-93; University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England, research assistant, 1993-94, Royal Society University Research Fellow, 1994-2002, honorary lecturer, 1994-99, professor of paleoclimatology, 2002—. Member, Atmospheric Sciences peer review committee, Natural Environment Research Council, London, 2000-03. Visiting lecturer at universities, including University of California, Pennsylvania State University, Manchester University, Cambridge University, Yale University, and University of Utrecht.

MEMBER:

Linnean Society of London (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Philip Leverhulme Prize in earth sciences, Leverhulme Trust, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(Under name D.J. Beerling, with F.I. Woodward) Vegetation and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Modelling the First 400 Million Years, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author of the David Beerling blog. Editorial advisor, New Phytologist, 1994—; member of editorial board, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 1997—. Contributor of more than one hundred scholarly papers to periodicals, including Science; Nature; Global Biogeochemical Cycles; Trends in Ecology and Evolution; Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology; Plant Physiology; New Phytologist; Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; Earth and Planetary Science Letters; and Geophysical Research Letters.

SIDELIGHTS:

David Beerling uses the fossil record of ancient plants to interpret climate changes and extinction phenomena that have occurred in the distant past. His work combines elements of several scientific fields, including paleobotany, paleoclimatology, and plant physiology. Through his two books, Vegetation and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle: Modelling the First 400 Million Years, written with F.I. Woodward, and The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History, Beerling has used the available specimens of plant fossils to determine how plants affect global environments and how they have responded in the past to both gradual and radical climate change.

Beerling's work has helped document global climate change based on levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide as revealed through the physiology of fossil leaves. From the geologic record he has devised scenarios for mass extinctions that can result from changes in the Earth's temperature, either by warming or cooling. The Emerald Planet reveals the history of the globe through fossilized plant matter, an esoteric study that might appeal only to scientists if not for concerns about global climate change in the twenty-first century.

While Vegetation and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle is directed toward a scholarly audience, The Emerald Planet aims for a wider readership and thus fills a gap in the literature about fossils. Many popular books on ancient life concentrate on the animal kingdom. The Emerald Planet demonstrates how crucial the evolution of plants has been to evolution of all living things and how plant life has altered global climate in the past. The book's nine sections include historical anecdotes about researchers in the field of paleobotany, but the bulk of the book is devoted to the many deductions scientists can make from studying geological history through fossil plants.

"At last the role of plants is recognized in the great events of Earth's history," wrote Louis Ronse De Craene in Geographical. De Craene credited Beerling for "inspiring in the reader a fascination for the prehistoric plant world that is usually reserved for dinosaurs…. Beerling's approach is refreshing … in stressing the importance of plants in the evolution of the climate." The Emerald Planet also addresses the current trends in climate change. De Craene called this section of the book a "stark warning" about human alteration of the planet's natural balance. A reviewer for SciTech Book News found Beerling's conclusions "terrifying," but De Craene thought Beerling's outlook "optimistic." De Craene stated, "The environmental legacy of the plant kingdom upon our world can only be better appreciated after reading this book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October, 2007, S.M. Paracer, review of The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History, p. 309.

Geographical, June, 2007, Louis Ronse De Craene, "The Seeds of Change," p. 87.

Nature, June 14, 2007, Paul Falkowski, "Secret Life of Plants," p. 778.

New Scientist, March 31, 2007, Stephanie Pain, "Leaf Through," p. 50.

SciTech Book News, June, 2007, review of The Emerald Planet.

Times Literary Supplement, November 23, 2007, Jonathan Silvertown, "Green Poles," p. 29.

ONLINE

University of Sheffield Web site,http://www.shef.ac.uk/ (February 7, 2008), author biography.

White Rose Paleobiology Group Web site,http://www.palaeobiology.org.uk/ (February 7, 2008), author biography.