Is Conservation Biology a Paleontological Pursuit?

Abstract

Human society is fascinated with secrets of the past. “Escape into an ancient world,” proclaim the museum exhibits. “Let us show you the marvelous record we have of an extinct lineage that dominated Earth and has left nothing but these fossils behind! An evolutionary dead-end,” paleontological displays bark like a circus sideshow. In spite of such appeals to our most faithful audiences, a paleontologist represents the quintessential natural historian. The careful documentation of the history and biota of natural areas whose record is preserved only in rocks provides context to the more lurid views of the terrors of the past. For unified reconstructions, the focus is on specimens or communities with the highest quality preservation, in time or space. Special avenues of opportunity lead us into multi-species interactions (epibiota, predation, parasitism, mutualisms) or into physical controls on biological processes (growth modification in altered atmospheres, for example). A paleontological focus on species other than humans seemingly removes paleontologists from the arena of Conservation Biology, in which the behavior of humans directly affects the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity. But are we removed? How often are paleontological insights and inspiration about communities of the past derived from what we see beyond the backyard fence today? That fence, representing the distance we place between ourselves and the natural world today, may be far more important to our interpretations than we recognize. Paleontology depends on modern analogs to reign-in the unbridled speculation that the record invites. Does that depositional environment exist? Would that tissue deform to leave such a pattern? Does a scavenger leave marks like that? How far could that wing carry that seed? What range of morphologies is typical for such a peculiar environment today? Do geographic ranges of species in a single clade shrink or expand as climates warm? …