Biography
Positions
Education
Teaching Areas
Undergraduate Programs
- Biology
- Environmental Science
- Geography
Graduate Studies
- Environmental Science/Studies, MESc/MES
Graduate Supervision
Accepting Students for Supervision
School year
- 2027/28
- 2028/29
Research
Research Interests
- Terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem dynamics
- Long-term climate impacts
- Quaternary climate trends
- Wildfire impacts and pyrogeographical processes
Current Research Projects / Labs
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.
Grants & Funding
- Wildfire and Watersheds: Linking Past Fire Regimes to Watershed Responses in Lake of Bays, Ontario, Lake of Bays Environmental Project Grant, 2026
- Understanding the aquatic ecosystem response and resilience to past wildfires in Tasmania, Australia (NEIF # IP-2921.0325), National Environmental Isotope Facility Natural Environment Research Council, 2025
- Using palaeoecological off-grid genomics to understand the effects of wildfire on aquatic ecosystem state and resilience (RG\R2\232075), Royal Society Research Grants 2023 Round 2 scheme, 2023
- Wildfire impacts on freshwater ecosystems in Canada (SR23\1032), Small Research Grant, British Ecological Society, 2023
Honorary Fellow in Physical Geography, School of Natural Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK
Open to Media Inquiries
Publications
Peer reviewed Publications
Schneider, L., Guerrero, S., Mudd, G., Aquino-Lopez, M.A., Beck, K.K., Sun, R., Haberle, S.G., Fletcher, M.-S., Zawadzki, A., Hintelmann, H., Griffiths, A., Cooke, C., & de Caritat, P. (2025) The Legacy of Mercury Contamination from Colonial Nonferrous Mining in the Southern Hemisphere, Environmental Science & Technology, 59 (26), 13275-13285
Rehn, E., Cadd, H., Mooney, S., Cohen, T. J., Munack, H., Codilean, A. T., Adeleye, M., Beck, K. K., Constantine IV, M., Gouramanis, C., Hanson, J. M., Jones, P. J., Kershaw, A. P., Mackenzie, L., Maisie, M., Mariani, M., Matley, K., McWethy, D., Mills, K., Moss, P., Patton, N. R., Rowe, C., Stevenson, J., Tibby, J., and Wilmshurst, J. (2025) The SahulCHAR collection: a palaeofire database for Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand, Earth System Science Data, 17, 2681–2692.
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
Schneider, L., Shulmeister, N., Mariani, M., Beck, K. K., Fletcher, M.-S., Zawadzki, A., Saunders, K. M., Aquino-López, M. A., & Haberle, S. G. (2020). Colonialism and the environment: The pollution legacy of the Southern Hemisphere’s largest copper mine in the 20th century. The Anthropocene Review, 9(1), 3-23
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 physico-chemical parameters on mercury deposition Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene: Special Issue on Mercury, 8(1):019
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
Beck, K.K., Mariani, M., Fletcher, M-S., Schneider, L., Aquino-Lopez, M., 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 impacts of climate and fire on catchment processes and aquatic ecosystem response. Quaternary Science Reviews, 221, 105892
Mariani, M., Beck, K. K., Fletcher, M.-S., Gell, P., Saunders, K. M., Gadd, P., & Chisari, R. (2018). Biogeochemical responses to Holocene catchment-lake dynamics in the Tasmanian World Heritage Area, Australia. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 123(5), 1610–1624.
Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M-S., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H., Saunders, K.M., Simpson, G. & Zawadzki, A. (2018) 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 (2), 495-508
Beck. K.K., Fletcher, M-S., Kattel, G., Barry, L., Gadd, P.S., Heijnis, H., Jacobsen, G., & Saunders, K.M. (2018) The indirect response of an aquatic ecosystem to long term climate-driven terrestrial vegetation in a subalpine temperate lake. Journal of Biogeography, 1-13
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.
Other Publications
Beck, K.K. & Cadd, H. (2017) Numerical Analysis of Palaeoenvironmental Data course Quaternary Australasia 34 (1), 36-37
Fletcher, M.-S. & Beck, K.K. (2016) What is the role of fire in driving long-term coupled terrestrial-aquatic ecosystem dynamics? An integrated biophysical and geochemical analysis AINSE Annual Report 2016, Archaerology & Geosciences pg. 8-9
Gell, P., Beck, K.K., Fletcher, M.-S., Kattel, G. & Doan, P. (2018) Gunbower Forest Wetlands – Paleoecological History A report for the North Central Catchment Management Authority