Research interests

Most of all, I am fascinated by the interactions between climate, humans and their environment in the past. It gets exciting when different research fields such as palaeoecology, archaeology or climatology join and work together within the same research project. In my work, I particularly like its variety as well as the exchange within geoecology but also between the different research groups.

Curriculum vitae

2020 Prix Schläfli Price winner

Since 2018 Lab manager, Geoecology Research Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel

2018 Postdoc, Institute of Plant Sciences (Palaeoecology Research Group) and Institute of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bern

2013-2017 PhD student, Institute of Plant Sciences (Palaeoecology) and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern

2013 Technician/Research assistant, Abisko Scientific Research Station, Sweden

2012 Civilian service, Pro Natura Aargau

2010-2012 Master in Climate Sciences (MSc), University of Bern

2007-2010 Bachelor in Geosciences (BSc), University of Basel

Key publications

Rey F, Tinner W, Wick L, Gobet E, Allan E, Szidat S, Leuzinger U, Heiri O, 2026. Decadal-scale pollen records link land use and plant diversity change across European lowlands over seven millennia. Nature Communications 17: 7381. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-74214-6

Rey F, Heiri O, Wick L, Gobet E, Szidat S, Leuzinger U, Ebersbach R, Hafner A, Tinner W, 2025. Neolithic land use and forest dynamics on the Swiss Plateau (southwestern Central Europe). Quaternary Science Reviews 360: 109372. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109372

Rey F, Courtney Mustaphi CJ, Szidat S, Gobet E, Heiri O, Tinner W, 2023. Radiocarbon sampling efforts for high-precision lake sediment chronologies. The Holocene 33: 581–591. DOI: 10.1177/09596836231151835

Rey F, Gobet E, Schwörer C, Hafner A, Szidat S, Tinner W, 2020 Climate impacts on vegetation and fire dynamics since the last deglaciation at Moossee (Switzerland). Climate of the Past 16: 1347–1367. DOI: 10.5194/cp-16-1347-2020

Rey F, Gobet E, Schwörer C, Wey O, Hafner A, Tinner W, 2019. Causes and mechanisms of synchronous succession trajectories in primeval Central European mixed Fagus sylvatica forests. Journal of Ecology 107: 1392–1408. DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.13121

Rey F, Gobet E, van Leeuwen JFN, Gilli A, van Raden UJ, Hafner A, Wey O, Rhiner J, Daniela Schmocker D, Zünd J & Tinner W, 2017. Vegetational and agricultural dynamics at Burgäschisee (Swiss Plateau) recorded for 18,700 years by multi-proxy evidence from partly varved sediments. Vegetation history and archaeobotany 26: 571–586. DOI: 10.1007/s00334-017-0635-x