Cover of Conservation Paleobiology
Conservation Paleobiology Science and Practice
edited by Gregory P. Dietl and Karl W. Flessa
University of Chicago Press, 2017
Cloth: 978-0-226-50669-2 | Paper: 978-0-226-50672-2 | Electronic: 978-0-226-50686-9
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.001.0001

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ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYREVIEWSTABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS BOOK

In conservation, perhaps no better example exists of the past informing the present than the return of the California condor to the Vermilion Cliffs of Arizona. Extinct in the region for nearly one hundred years, condors were successfully reintroduced starting in the 1990s in an effort informed by the fossil record—condor skeletal remains had been found in the area’s late-Pleistocene cave deposits. The potential benefits of applying such data to conservation initiatives are unquestionably great, yet integrating the relevant disciplines has proven challenging. Conservation Paleobiology gathers a remarkable array of scientists—from Jeremy B. C. Jackson to Geerat J. Vermeij—to provide an authoritative overview of how paleobiology can inform both the management of threatened species and larger conservation decisions.

Studying endangered species is difficult. They are by definition rare, some exist only in captivity, and for those still in their native habitats any experimentation can potentially have a negative effect on survival. Moreover, a lack of long-term data makes it challenging to anticipate biotic responses to environmental conditions that are outside of our immediate experience. But in the fossil and prefossil records—from natural accumulations such as reefs, shell beds, and caves to human-made deposits like kitchen middens and archaeological sites—enlightening parallels to the Anthropocene can be found that might serve as a primer for present-day predicaments. Offering both deep-time and near-time perspectives and exploring a range of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and taxa from terrestrial as well as aquatic habitats, Conservation Paleobiology is a sterling demonstration of how the past can be used to manage for the future, giving new hope for the creation and implementation of successful conservation programs.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Gregory P. Dietl is curator of Cenozoic invertebrates at the Paleontological Research Institution and adjunct associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future faculty fellow at Cornell University. Karl W. Flessa is professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona. He is coeditor, most recently, of Conservation of Shared Environments: Learning from the United States and Mexico.

REVIEWS

“Without considering lessons from the past, plans for the future are at best flawed and at worst doomed to fail. Without knowledge from paleobiology, accurate assessment and management of the biodiversity crisis is not possible. Conservation Paleobiology will reach beyond paleontology and geology to all those interested in biodiversity conservation, climate and environmental change, and evolution and extinction in a variety of fields—especially biology, but also in the public policy and environmental management arena. An excellent volume at the cutting edge of a nascent and promising discipline, this book has the potential to contribute significantly to one of the most pressing societal issues today.”
— Patricia Kelley, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

“Paleobiology can guide us in managing (and managing to avoid some) environmental change. The past is not the perfect predictor of the future by any means, but it can greatly enrich our understanding of what futures could be and what the choices before us are. . . . The planet does not work as just a physical system. It works as a combined biological and physical system, one that is now being distorted by the human enterprise. At some point humanity and the planet will certainly come to some sort of equilibrium, but biology and paleobiology will be needed for the outcome to be salutary.”
— Thomas E. Lovejoy, from the foreword

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Thomas E. Lovejoy

Introduction

Section One: Conservation Paleobiology in Near Time


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0001
[baseline;bioskeletal remains;geochemistry;geochronology;taphonomy;trace fossil]
This chapter reviews eco-environmental information that can be extracted from the youngest (surficial) fossil record. The main focus of this review are shell-producing macro-invertebrates, which are abundant at (or near) the sediment surface in many aquatic and terrestrial habitats. As demonstrated by geochronologic and sclerochronologic analyses, such Holocene shell accumulations provide direct, often continuous, records of the most recent centuries and millennia. They offer us a broad spectrum of data, including multiple taxonomic, ecologic, taphonomic, geochronologic, and geochemical parameters that can inform us about the recent history of organisms, communities, ecosystems, and environments. Eco-environmental analyses of shells and other bio-remains provide us thus with a long-term historical perspective; a quantitative baseline for understanding pre-industrial ecosystems, evaluating anthropogenic changes, and assessing restoration efforts. This research strategy, sometimes referred to as “conservation paleobiology,” is often based on dead remains only, and consequently, represents a biologically non-invasive approach to conservation issues. The recently dead—the youngest fossil record of environmental and ecological processes at local, regional, and global scales—can help us to protect the living and should allow us to manage the future of our biosphere more effectively. (pages 7 - 30)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0002
[climate change;eutrophication;lake acidification;paleolimnology;species invasion;wildlife exploitation]
Lake and river sediments archive a vast array of data that can be used by paleolimnologists to track past ecological and environmental conditions. Much of this long-term information has considerable application for conservation biology efforts. This chapter reviews some of the general approaches used by paleolimnologists and then provides several case studies and examples where paleolimnological data are used to assist ecologists in conservation efforts. Specific examples include the ecological effects of acidification, eutrophication, erosion, climatic change, contaminant transport, species invasions and extirpations, and the reconstruction of past wildlife population dynamics. (pages 31 - 44)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0003
[abundance;ancient DNA;assisted migration;extinction;species composition;species richness;vertebrates]
The science and practice of conservation biology face new challenges in the next few decades that will require application of the vertebrate fossil record. Linkages between vertebrate paleontology and conservation biology are needed to: (1) define the range of variation that ecosystems experience in their lifespan; (2) provide metrics for monitoring ecosystems that are useful for conservation biologists and benchmarks for recognizing successful ecosystem management; and (3) develop effective conservation strategies for species and ecosystems. This chapter summarizes some ways vertebrate paleontological work on genetics, populations, species diversity, and extinction is contributing to these needs. For example, the application of ancient DNA techniques in the context of life history strategies provides a means of determining when modern populations are in trouble. Species composition, abundance, and richness in modern ecosystems all can be compared to the paleontological record to assess when an ecosystem is exhibiting unusual changes. Past extinctions offer insights as to how to avoid future ones. New conservation efforts such as assisted migration will require information on which kinds of species substitutions maintained ecological function in the past. As ecosystems require more human manipulation to sustain biodiversity, the paleontological record will become even more important in assessing ecological health. (pages 45 - 66)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0004
[climate change;resource management;scenario planning;temporal scaling]
Ecosystems of the Rocky Mountain region are undergoing rapid change owing to interactions among climate change, widespread fire and pathogen outbreaks, species invasions, and human land-use. Natural-resource managers in the region face great challenges in planning and implementing effective management strategies, challenges that are amplified by the uncertainties in predicting local to regional-scale climate change. This chapter discusses the valuable perspectives and insights for resource management gained from paleoecological and paleoclimatological records by showing how local and regional ecosystems have responded to past environmental changes of various types, magnitudes, and rates. Different patterns of change emerge across a nested hierarchy of time scales (respectively, the past 15, 150, 1500, and 15,000 years), and the dynamics at these various scales can provide realistic and concrete scenarios that reveal vulnerabilities and potential responses to future environmental variability and change. (pages 67 - 86)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0005
[archeology;historical ecology;paleoecology;shifting baseline]
Human exploitation and pollution have shifted the baselines of contemporary marine ecosystems almost beyond recognition from their formerly pristine state. Structural organisms like corals, seagrasses, and kelps are greatly reduced, megafauna virtually eliminated, and food webs altered from dominance by large, apex predators to much smaller fishes and invertebrates. This chapter discusses why geological, archeological, historical, and early scientific data are essential to reconstruct the pristine composition, structure, and function of recent marine ecosystems before human disturbance intensified. Archeological, historical, and fisheries data have the advantage of first hand human observation, but the disadvantage inherent in human choice. The fossil record is comparatively immune to such human bias but suffers potentially equivalent taphonomic effects. Nevertheless, the geochemical and fossil record provide the only direct test of the extent to which natural environmental change versus human impacts have altered marine communities. Deeper time perspective provides valuable tools for conservation and management, but only so long as the rules about the ways ecosystems function do not drastically change. Allee effects and positive feedbacks are increasingly pushing ecosystems into alternative states. The basic question is how far this degradation can go before we cannot retrieve what we have lost. (pages 87 - 100)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0006
[abundance;behavior;diet;rewilding;shifting baseline;stable isotopes;vertebrates]
Over the past 50,000 years, global ecosystems have experienced substantial shifts in composition and function as a result of climate change and the direct and/or indirect impact of humans. Studies of how species and ecosystems responded to these changes and characterization of the ecology of past ecosystems provide unique perspectives for conservation biology and restoration ecology. Stable isotope analysis is a powerful tool for such studies, as it can be used to trace energy flow, the strength of species interactions, animal physiology, and movement patterns. This chapter provides a brief summary of the isotopic systems used to study ecology and physiology, past and present. Four examples highlight ways in which isotopic data have played a central role in characterizing ecological shifts in marine and terrestrial faunas over the past 50,000 years. The role isotopic paleoecology could play in characterizing interactions among extinct Pleistocene megafauna is also discussed. Such data would be integral to assessing the viability of Pleistocene ‘rewilding’ of North America. (pages 101 - 118)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0007
[baseline;live-dead comparision;death assemblage;anthropogenic eutrophication;bottom-trawling;marine mollusks]
Time-averaged death assemblages (DAs) of marine molluscs are an important resource for evaluation of recent community change. This chapter demonstrates how the DA retains a memory of the former abundance of species that are now rare or absent in the living assemblage. Quantitative synthesis of ~100 “live-dead” comparisons establish that time-averaged DAs can be used to advantage in conservation biology. The strongest correlate of poor live-dead (LD) agreement is anthropogenic eutrophication (AE). Bottom-trawling (BT) of seafloors is also associated with LD mismatch but only where species are not naturally adapted to frequent physical disturbance. The degree of LD mismatch can be used to recognize AE and BT in areas where human activities are unknown or unregulated. LD agreement is remarkably high in areas unaffected by human activities, so LD analysis can also be used to identify regions that can serve as restoration baselines. The high LD agreement found in pristine settings is also the best estimate of how confidently we can reconstruct, in degraded areas, the original community. LD comparison fails to detect ecological change in almost half of all habitats where human stresses definitely exist, making this is a conservative tool that will tend to under-estimate human impacts. (pages 119 - 146)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0008
[abundance;body size;geographic range;macroecology;morphological diversity]
With or without realizing it, macroecology, paleobiology, and conservation biology have been addressing similar issues using similar methods and analogous data sets. Much of what we call “paleobiology” overlaps heavily with macroecology, and their shared interest in losses in biodiversity over space and time clearly is of interest to conservation biology. This chapter examines how some “classic” macroecological and paleobiological studies and techniques apply to issues that currently are of interest to conservation biology. Examples are far from exhaustive, but include examining temporal (or possible temporal) shifts in: 1) geographic range sizes; 2) body size distributions; 3) relative abundance distributions; and, 4) morphological diversity. Reframing these issues in terms of how loss of biodiversity and richness affects particular slices of time including (but not limited to) the present should do much to communicate the value of macroecological and paleobiological methods and theory to conservation research. (pages 147 - 170)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press

Section Two: Conservation Paleobiology in Deep Time


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0009
[adaptation;diversity-productivity relationship;ecosystem recovery;extinction;global warming;invasion;ocean acidification]
This chapter offers a blueprint for how conservation can be informed by insights from paleontology. The long-term perspective provided by the fossil record shows that habitat fragmentation and the elimination of high-level consumers, especially in productive environments, exacerbate the destructive effects of invasion, global warming, and ocean acidification, and prevent or slow ecosystem recovery and the adaptation of surviving species. Paleontology therefore reinforces widely held views in conservation biology that protection of large tracts of unexploited, productive habitat and large, charismatic plants and animals is the best investment to make in the long-term health, resilience, and adaptability of the biosphere. (pages 173 - 182)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0010
[Antarctica;climate change;Eocene;policy recommendation;predation;scale independence]
The fossil record affords us the opportunity to reconstruct the history of communities prior to human intervention, infer the causes underlying that history, and make early, accurate, and mechanistic predictions about their future as human-dominated systems. This chapter highlights how by comparing perturbed communities of the present to paleocommunities that were prevalent in earlier time intervals, insight can be gained into the causes and mechanisms of ecological degradation. Such insights are founded on testable hypotheses that ecological processes are scale independent. As an example, nearshore, shallow-benthic communities living in Antarctica today are reminiscent of Paleozoic communities, which were dominated by epifaunal suspension-feeders and lacked the functionally modern, durophagous predators that diversified in the Mesozoic. Paleoecological analysis, in corroborating the postulated scale independence of predator–prey interactions, leads us through a logical sequence of ideas with predictive power: (1) Antarctic marine communities were functionally modern before climatic cooling began 41 Ma; (2) they were forced toward a quasi-Paleozoic composition when the cooling trend reduced and ultimately eliminated durophagous predation; and (3) they will soon be re-modernized as global warming and increased ship traffic in Antarctica permit predators to reinvade. (pages 183 - 200)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0011
[cascading extinction on graphs modeling;extinction;food web dynamics;paleoecommunity]
Food webs are powerful representations of some of the most significant interspecific relationships in a community. They have been used as primary tools in studies of the relationship between biodiversity and ecological stability, and the robustness and resilience of communities in the face of environmental disturbance. Those topics are central to theoretical studies in conservation biology, and hence conservation paleobiology. Food webs can be constructed from paleocommunity data, given that proper attention is paid to limitations imposed by fossil preservation and the geological record, and that questions are asked at appropriate scales. This chapter presents a mathematical model, CEG (Cascading Extinction on Graphs) for the reconstruction and analysis of paleocommunity food webs. The model utilizes combinatoric and network-based mathematics, combining network topological and population demographic processes. CEG is founded upon ecological first principles and effectively mimics fundamental trophic processes, such as trophic cascades, keystone predator effects, bottom-up community collapse, and parasite-mediated suppression of populations. The model is applied to two example paleocommunities, a terrestrial community from the Late Permian of the Karoo Basin in South Africa, and a Neogene coastal marine community from the Dominican Republic. Insights, assumptions and limitations of the model are explored. (pages 201 - 226)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0012
[assisted migration;baseline;biodiversity hotspots;evolutionarily enlightened management;rewilding;species interactions;global environmental change]
Predicting how society is altering the evolving web of life represents an immense scientific problem in conservation biology. An important challenge is to understand how to conserve the evolutionary processes that generate and maintain the web of life in the face of impending global environmental changes. This chapter outlines the role that the field of conservation paleobiology can play in addressing this challenge, discusses why a focus on evolving ecological interactions is a vital conservation priority, and reviews hypotheses of adaptation of living entities to their biological surroundings, specifically coevolution and escalation, which are critical processes for a full characterization of how evolving ecological interactions are linked across spatial and temporal scales. Three examples illustrate how paleobiological data can be applied to improve “tools” developed to prioritize conservation effort. (pages 227 - 250)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0013
[abundance;allopatric speciation;anthropogenic change;shifting baseline;speciation cycle]
Humans have caused not only extinction of species; they have dramatically reduced the abundance of many species, especially over the past 500 years. These reductions have come not just in already rare species, but in many formerly abundant species. Modern abundances of these species are therefore not representative of pre-human nature. This “shifting baselines” view suggests that it may be “natural” not just for a few species to be abundant and many rare, but for many species to be abundant and a few to be superabundant. Humans have also significantly changed the distribution of global biomass and biological production, not just by reducing the abundance of formerly numerous species, but also by habitat modification and resource use. These human-induced changes in biomass, production, and abundance are likely altering future patterns of speciation in many clades. This chapter develops an explicit model for the stages of allopatric speciation that allows for predictions about which species will see increased speciation in the future, and which are likely to have speciation suppressed. If the present is not an entirely adequate key to past levels of abundance, then the fossil record is one of the best places to test these ideas. (pages 251 - 280)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press

Section Three: Conservation Paleobiology at Work


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0014
[Colorado River delta;translational paleoecology;sclerochronology;anthropogenic change;river diversion]
Paleontological and paleoecological techniques can be enormously effective in understanding the biology of species at risk and in reconstructing their habitats. This chapter presents a case study from the Colorado River delta and its species that uses a familiar toolkit: taphonomy, taxonomy, geochronology, sclerochronology, and geochemistry. The accumulations of skeletal remains and sediments in the delta and estuary convincingly demonstrate that habitats, species composition, relative abundances, and individual growth rates in the delta and estuary have been profoundly affected by the nearly complete anthropogenic diversion of the river’s water. Establishing a pre-diversion baseline documents an environmental impact not otherwise demonstrable because of the lack of an observational record. Such a baseline also provides goals for species recovery and habitat restoration. Translating paleoecological information into conservation action requires collaborations with agencies and environmental organizations. Paleontologists who want to put the dead to work need to expand their usual tool kit to include environmental law and policy, need to respond to the concerns of agencies and environmental groups, and need to work with the media. (pages 283 - 290)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press


DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226506869.003.0015
[conservation policy;management;research-implementation gap;restoration]
This chapter presents a conversation among five conservation paleobiologists that highlights some of the personal, practical, and institutional factors affecting the application of conservation paleobiology. The five practitioners work with island faunas and floras, lakes, coral reefs, and estuaries. They all highlight the importance of personal initiative in engaging with conservation practice and policy, and patience in seeing the results of academic work put into application. They note that their work is most effective when they make the effort to learn what the conservation non-governmental organizations and governmental agencies need to know. They agree that applied work provides intellectual challenges, opportunities for students, and funding. All the participants in the roundtable came to conservation paleobiology from geological, paleontological, or ecological backgrounds. The hybrid nature of the field made their skills transferable. (pages 291 - 302)
This chapter is available at:
    University of Chicago Press

Epilogue. Conservation Paleobiology in the Anthropocene

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Index

Book published by University of Chicago Press, 2017. Page maintained by BiblioVault.