Welcome!
As a geographer and geoecologist, I am interested in understanding long-term environmental and climatic changes, with a focus on the natural and human dimensions of changing wildfire regimes.
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, Netherlands, and a guest researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Germany. Find more about my research profile here.
This website represents a personal portfolio, compiling my publications, awards and funding, outreach, a gallery, as well as news and contact details right below!
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University, Netherlands, and a guest researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Germany. Find more about my research profile here.
This website represents a personal portfolio, compiling my publications, awards and funding, outreach, a gallery, as well as news and contact details right below!
[Gallery picture]
Wildfire smoke plume during fieldwork in eastern Siberia (Photo: R. Glückler, 08/2021 in Yakutia)
[Gallery picture]
Larch forest after a high-intensity wildfire (Photo: R. Glückler, 08/2021 in Yakutia)
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Fieldwork in the Austrian Alps (Photo: R. Glückler, 09/2022 at Dachstein, Austria)
[Gallery picture]
Fieldwork in the Austrian Alps (Photo: R. Glückler, 03/2025 at Dachstein, Austria)
News
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January 19, 2026: New research article published
In this study, now published in a special issue of Global and Planetary Change, we reconstruct for the first time specifically long-term wildfire intensity in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), eastern Siberia, using benzene polycarboxylic acids (BPCAs). It is the result of a project I conducted during my one-year research stay at Hokkaido University, Japan, in parallel to my PhD research. We characterize fire intensity in Holocene sediment cores from different elevations, in surface sediments, and within extracted charcoal particles, and discuss effects of lake size, setting, taphonomy, and more:
Glückler R., Tsuyuzaki S., Herzschuh U., Pestryakova L.A., Dietze E., Kruse S., Yamashita Y. (2026): Wildfire intensity changes since the Mid-Holocene in highly continental Yakutia, Siberia, revealed by benzene polycarboxylic acids. Global and Planetary Change, 258, 105308. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105308
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December 25, 2025: New research article published
Led by Ziru Hao and Kai Li from Zhejiang Normal University, this study in Quaternary Science Reviews presents a new high-resolution charcoal record documenting wildfire activity over the past c. 35,000 years at Erhai Lake, Yunnan, China. It shows how multi-centennial-scale fire regime variations were linked to spring insolation and the Asian Summer Monsoon, making fire regimes of this region more sensitive to changes in moisture availability than temperature:
Hao Z., Li P., Li C., Yang Y., Cui K., Zhang X., Liao M., Liu L., Wang Y., Glückler R., Li K., Liu X., Ni J. (2026): Charcoal record reveals the cause and impact of wildfires in southwestern China over the past 35,200 years. Quaternary Science Reviews, 374, 109780. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109780
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December 5, 2025: Visit at University of Göttingen
For the past two days I visited Elisabeth Dietze's Landscape Fire Lab at the Department of Physical Geography, University of Göttingen, Germany. Together with her motivated students we set up and tested a preparation and evaluation routine for sedimentary charcoal particles. Looking forward to the results!
For a list of previous news entries, visit the news archive.