Anastasia Poliakova,^1,*,** Karin A.F. Zonneveld,^2,*** Lucia S. Herbeck,^3,**** Tim C. Jennerjahn,^3,***** Haryadi Permana,^4,****** Cornelia Kwiatkowski,^2,******* Hermann Behling<sup>1,********

1</sup>aAlbrecht-von-Haller-Institute for Plant Sciences, Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics, Ge
²bCenter for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM), Bremen, D-28359 Germany;
³cLeibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT), Bremen, D-28359 Germany;
⁴dEarthquake and Geodynamics Research Group, Research Center for Geotechnology, Indonesian Institute

^*CONTACT Anastasia Poliakova anastasia.poliakova@biologie.uni-goettingen.de
^**Anastasia Poliakova received her PhD from the Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany. She graduated in biology, obtained her MSc in ecology from Saint-Petersburg University, Russia, and her second MSc in geosciences from Hamburg University in Germany. She has participated in several international research projects focused on modern vegetation studies, the history of European, subtropical and tropical vegetation, and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Currently, she is involved in the bilateral German-Indonesian Research Program SPICE III (Science for the Protection of Indonesian Coastal Ecosystems). Her research is focused on the reconstruction of the late Holocene vegetation, land use, and climate history in Java and Kalimantan, combining methods of pollen and dinoflagellate cyst analysis. Anastasia's interests are wide and multidisciplinary; they include marine and terrestrial palynology, palaeoecology, climate and environment reconstruction, vegetation and biodiversity studies, humanvegetation interactions, environmental science, use of geochemical proxies in marine geology, and GIS technologies.
^***Karin A.F. Zonneveld is a Senior Scientist at the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, Germany, where she leads the Marine Palynology Division in the Department of Marine Micropalaeontology. She received her PhD from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and her Habilitation from the University of Bremen. Karin's research is multidisciplinary and combines marine palynology with biological and geological palaeoceanography, environmental science and organic geochemistry. The focus of her research is on the application and development of marine palynomorphs, notably dinoflagellate cysts as tools to establish palaeoenvironmental and palaeoceanographical reconstructions. In particular, Karin is interested in the effects of variable environmental conditions on the geographical distribution, preservation and production of palynomorphs. Her work on preservation levels included the study of the effects of early diagenetic processes on the organic geochemical characteristics of palynomorphs.
^****Lucia Herbeck (née KRUPP) has experience with seagrass ecology and marine biogeochemistry from her MSc thesis in Costa Rica and her PhD thesis in Hainan coastal waters as part of the Sino-German LANCET project (Land-Sea Interactions along Coastal Ecosystems of Tropical China, Hainan). Her research focus is on understanding and quantifying the effects of landbased anthropogenic activities (aquaculture, agriculture, urban development) on water quality, sedimentary processes, and seagrass health status in adjacent coastal systems. She has expertise in nutrient analysis, elemental and isotopic methods, bioassay experiments, health assessments and mapping of seagrass meadows as well as organic matter and stable isotope analysis of sedimentary archives. Currently, she is involved in the bilateral German-Indonesian Research Program SPICE III. Her research is focused on the reconstruction of late Holocene gradients in carbon and nutrient input into the Java Sea related to human activities in river catchments along the Java-Kalimantan transect.
^*****Tim C. Jennerjahn is head of the Ecological Biogeochemistry working group at the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Ecology in Bremen, Germany). He trained in geology and biogeochemistry at the University of Hamburg, Germany. His research focuses on the biogeochemical response of coastal aquatic systems to environmental change in tropical regions at present and in the past. Tim is coordinating and participating in collaborative interdisciplinary research projects in Indonesia, India, Brazil, China and Vietnam, and has conducted numerous land- and ship-based expeditions. His recent research has concentrated on the effects of land-based human activities on coastal aquatic systems in the tropics, for example, the impact of inputs of nutrients, organic matter, organic pollutants, and suspended sediments on mangroves, seagrasses and coastal seas. Tim's research results are published in numerous articles in journals and books. He is an Associate Editor of Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science and he served as guest editor for numerous special issues of international journals. He teaches at the University of Bremen and in partner universities abroad and has served as thesis supervisor for students from Europe, South America, Africa and Asia.
^******Haryadi Permana is a senior geoscientist and, since 2011, a director of the Research Center for Geotechnology at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Bandung, Indonesia. He received his PhD in geology from Nantes University, France in 1998. Haryadi works on plate dynamics in the eastern part of Indonesia, from Celebes to Papua, and in eastern Kalimantan. His research aims to help understand the submarine volcanic activity and hydrothermalism on the subducted tectonic plates in Eastern Indonesia, and the plate geodynamics in offshore Sumatra. Haryadi is actively involved in collaboration between Indonesian and German research institutions. Since 2012, he has been a coordinator of sub-topic 4 (Terrestrial Influences on Mangrove Ecology and Sustainability of Their Resources) of the SPICE III Program. The main target of this project is to understand whether recent environmental changes are caused by human activity or by natural forcing, and to estimate the degree of interference between natural and anthropogenic factors.
^*******Cornelia Kwiatkowski (née GLATZ) graduated in marine Geosciences at the University of Bremen, Germany and is currently a PhD student at MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences also in Bremen. She is involved in the bilateral German-Indonesian Research Program SPICE III. This project is on late Holocene variations in elemental composition and grain size distribution of marine sediments in response to changes in precipitation- related terrigenous runoff and coastal processes off Kalimantan and Java. Cornelia has expertise in the generation of age models, foraminiferal Mg/Ca thermometry and stable isotope analyses, planktonic foraminiferal assemblage counts as well as elemental and grain size measurements of marine sediments. Her research interests are the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of sea water conditions and variations in marine sediment composition in response to fluctuations in the climatic forcing mechanisms such as the Australian-Indonesia monsoon system, the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole.
^********Hermann Behling is a professor of botany at the University of Göttingen, Germany and head of the Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics. He has about 20 years of teaching and research experience. Hermann has published about 170 peer-reviewed research papers. He graduated in biology and continued in the subject to attain his PhD at the University of Göttingen. During this PhD work, at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, he was funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He has postdoctoral experience at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the University of Amsterdam, and the Centre for Marine Tropical Ecology at the University of Bremen, Germany. His major research interests are terrestrial and marine palynology, palaeoecology, biodiversity dynamics, palaeoclimatology, fire history and human settlement history. Hermann's research focuses on late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental studies in tropical and subtropical South America, Asia and Africa, land- ocean interactions, and palaeoecology in different ecosystems such as rainforests, savannas, mangroves and mountain vegetation. He is a member of the editorial boards of Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology and Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology.