Professor David Horne
Professor of Micropalaeontology
School of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Phone: 020 7882 7619
Fax: 020 7882 7479
Email: d.j.horne@qmul.ac.uk
Research interests:
Dave Horne specialises in the study of living and fossil ostracod crustaceans, both marine and freshwater, and has broader research interests in the fields of palaeoclimatology, biogeography, crustacean phylogeny, and the evolutionary ecology of sex and parthenogenesis. A current focus of his research, as an associate member of the AHOB3 project (Ancient Human Occupation of Britain), is the application of ostracods to the palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic interpretation of British Quaternary archaeological sites. He is also involved in investigations of Cretaceous marine and nonmarine ostracod faunas. He collaborates with colleagues at the Natural History Museum (where he is a Scientific Associate of the Zoology Department) and with scientists in Europe, Japan, Canada and the USA.
Some British Pleistocene freshwater ostracod shells (from Whittaker and Horne, 2009)
Ostracods as palaeoclimate proxies
Quaternary ostracods, both marine and nonmarine, are employed widely as biostratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental indicators (see, e.g., Whittaker & Horne, 2009) and increasingly as palaeoclimate proxies. The Mutual Ostracod Temperature Range (MOTR) method (Horne, 2007; Horne & Mezquita, 2008) combines nonmarine ostracod distributional data with modern climate data to establish species’ mean air temperature ranges (e.g. for January and July); thus calibrated, the overlapping ranges of fossil ostracods in a Quaternary assemblage can then be used to determine the mutual temperature range within which that assemblage could have lived. The primary "training set" source for the MOTR method is the NODE (Nonmarine Ostracod Distribution in Europe) database, initiated by members of an EU-funded project (Evolutionary Ecology of Reproductive Modes in Non-marine Ostracoda: 1994–1996) and further developed in support of two other EU projects (Fauna Europeaea: 2000–2004; From Sex to Asex: a case study on interactions between sexual and asexual reproduction: 2004–2008). NODE, currently containing approximately 10,000 records of living species and 2,000 fossil (Quaternary) records, is managed by Dave Horne, who welcomes approaches from anyone interested in contributing to or using the database.
Distribution and calibration of a freshwater ostracod as a palaeotemperature proxy.
The scope of methods like MOTR can be broadened and their accuracy improved by capturing more fully the climatic ranges of taxa with distributions that extend beyond the boundaries of any one database. Towards that aim, a special workshop at the 7th European Ostracodologists Meeting (EOM) in Graz, Austria (July 2011) introduced OMEGA, the Ostracod Metadatabase of Environmental and Geographical Attributes (Horne et al., 2011), an innovative approach to calibrating non-marine ostracods for global palaeoclimate applications by combining regional datasets. Such work must be accompanied by taxonomic harmonisation to ensure that species are correctly identified in different datasets. OMEGA grew out of a special session at the 6th EOM in Frankfurt, Germany (2007) and will be realised through international collaboration and sharing of regional ostracod databases, visualised with a Geographical Information System. Potential contributors thus far include D.J. Horne (QMUL, UK) (NODE database), A. Smith (Kent State University, Ohio, USA) (NANODe database), K. Martens (Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels) (southern African database), R. Smith (Lake Biwa Museum, Japan) (Japan and East Asia database) and L.D. Delorme / Canadian Museum of Nature (Canadian database).
Application of the Mutual Ostracod Temperature Range method (Horne, 2007) to the estimation of mean July air temperature during MIS11 at Woodston, England.
Links:
International Research Group on Ostracoda
The Micropalaeontological Society
Citizen Science project http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/research/trics/index.html http://scistarter.com/project/704-OMEGA-LOCATE?tab=project
Conference poster pdf downloads:
DJHorne MOTR poster.pdf [12.4 mb]
Horne and Martens southern African ostracods poster.pdf [8.4 mb]
Some recent publications:
Horne, D.J., Holmes, J.A., Rodriguez-Lazaro, J. & Viehberg , F. (eds) 2012. Ostracoda as Proxies for Quaternary Climate Change. Developments in Quaternary Sciences 17, 373 pp. Elsevier. Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/bookseries/15710866/17
- Peacock, J.D., Horne, D.J. & Whittaker, J.E. 2012. Late Devensian evolution of the marine offshore environment of western Scotland. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, 123, 419–437.
- Sames, B. & Horne, D.J. 2012. Latest Jurassic to Cretaceous non-marine ostracod biostratigraphy: Unde venis, quo vadis? Journal of Stratigraphy, 36, 266–288.
- Bridgland, D., Harding, P., Allen, P., Candy, I., Cherry, C., George, W., Horne, D. J., Keene, D.H., Penkman, K. E. H., Preece, R.C., Rhodes, E., Scaife, R., Schreve, D.C., Schwenninger, J.L., Slipper, I., Ward, G., White, M.J., White, T.S. & Whittaker, J.E. (in press corrected proof, 2012). An enhanced record of MIS 9 environments, geochronology and geoarchaeology: data from construction of the High Speed 1 (London–Channel Tunnel) rail-link and other recent investigations at Purfleet, Essex, UK. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association…. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pgeola.2012.03.006
- Horne, D.J., Curry, B.B., Delorme, L.D., Martens, K., Smith, A.J. & Smith, R.J. 2011. OMEGA: the Ostracod Metadatabase of Environmental and Geographical Attributes. Joannea Geologie und Paläontologie, 11, 80–84.
- Horne, D. J., Brandão, S. N. & Slipper, I. J. 2011. The Platycopid Signal deciphered: responses of ostracod taxa to environmental change during the Cenomanian-Turonian Boundary Event (Late Cretaceous) in SE England. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 308, 304-312.
- Horne, D. J., Jocque, M., Brendonck, L. & Martens, K. 2011. On Potamocypris compressa (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from temporary rock pools in Utah, USA, with notes on the taxonomic harmonisation of North American and European ostracod faunas. Zootaxa, 2793, 35-46.
- Holmes, J. A., Atkinson, T., Darbyshire, D. P. F., Horne, D. J., Joordens, J., Roberts, M. B., Sinka, K. J. & Whittaker, J. E. 2010. Middle Pleistocene climate and hydrological environment at the Boxgrove hominin site (West Sussex, UK) from ostracod records. Quaternary Science Reviews, 29, 1515–1527.
- Horne, D. J. 2010. Talking about a re-evolution: blind alleys in ostracod phylogeny. Journal of Micropalaeontology, 29, 1–6.
- Brandão, S. N. & Horne, D. J. 2009. The Platycopid Signal of oxygen depletion in the ocean: a critical evaluation of the evidence from modern ostracod biology, ecology and depth distribution. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 283, 126–133.
- Whittaker, J. E. & Horne, D. J. 2009. Pleistocene. In: Whittaker, J. E. & Hart, M. B. (eds), Ostracods in British Stratigraphy. The Micropalaeontological Society, Special Publications, 447–467.
- Horne, D. J. & Mezquita, F. 2008. Palaeoclimatic applications of large databases: developing and testing methods of palaeotemperature reconstruction using nonmarine ostracods. Senckenbergiana lethaea, 88, 93–112.
- Horne, D. J. 2007. A Mutual Temperature Range method for Quaternary palaeoclimatic analysis using European nonmarine Ostracoda. Quaternary Science Reviews, 26, 1398–1415.
Current postgraduate supervision:
- Ginny Benardout (PhD). Quantifying Quaternary climate change: testing micropalaeontological proxy methods for palaeotemperature estimation. Co-supervised by Simon Lewis (QMUL) and Steve Brooks (The Natural History Museum).
- Michaela Radl (PhD). Palaeoecological applications of saltmarsh meiofauna to understanding saltmarsh development and management. Co-supervised by Rob Hughes (QMUL, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences).
