Bridging the Divide from Paleoecology to Neoecology

Abstract

As paleoecologists we often claim that our science is relevant to conservation, but relatively few management plans are steered by paleoecological insights. One of our common justifications that paleoecology should feature in conservation is to determine what is ‘natural’. Intergenerational perceptions of naturalness are shaped by our experiences of ecosystems continuously and progressively influenced by human-induced stresses – the concept of shifting baselines. Those stresses have been present since the last ice-age in the tropical Andes, when fire regimes and megafaunal extinctions pre-dated the onset of the Holocene. Whereas human-induced ecological change is only evident for 200 years on the Galapagos Islands. But both instances are consistent that they show that low numbers of people, probably not even living in permanent settlements wrought lasting ecological changes and extinctions. Cascading effects of tortoise loss were seen on Galapagos vegetation that directly or indirectly led to extinctions among endemic plants. Making paleoecology relevant to conservation requires finding levels of taxonomic and temporal resolution that are relevant to land managers and providing concrete recommendations for restoration.