Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the provision of ecosystem services. Unfortunately, by the time an ecosystem reorganisation
occurs, it may be too late to act, as massive ecosystem changes are difficult to reverse (hyster-
esis). Before a tipping point is reached, systems may show increasing instability, sometimes
known as 'flickering' that can provide an early warning of impending change near an eco-
logical threshold (Dakos et al. 2013). The period when flickering occurs can provide a critical
window of opportunity for managers to intervene and prevent undesirable, hysteretic
changes (Biggs et  al. 2009, Dakos et  al. 2013). Evidence of ecosystem flickering response
can be found in palaeoecological records, and can be used to distinguish impending re-
organisation from normal background variability (Wang et al. 2012). For example, palaeoeco-
logical data from Erhai Lake in Yunnan, China showed evidence of rising flickering prior to a
critical transition in lake water quality, illustrating the potential of palaeoecology in inform-
ing proactive approaches that monitor key variables and prevent deleterious changes, rather
than struggling later to fix them (Wang et al. 2012). Such approaches are promising for safe-
guarding ecosystem services like good water quality, biodiversity, soil formation and climate
regulation (see Chapter 6) (Dearing et al. 2010, 2012b).
The role of palaeoecological databases in setting conservation targets
In these days of rapid climate change and landscape transformation, there is a need restore
ecological processes and to safeguard the resilience of ecosystems. Though it is intuitively
appealing to use pre-industrialized landscapes as conservation targets, the period immedi-
ately prior to the Anthropocene is characterized by the cold conditions of the LIA. The
warmer climates of the MWP and MHA are likely to provide more viable conservation targets,
because they more closely resemble the climate of today and the coming decades, and there
is therefore potential in the use of palaeoecological databases and the emerging field of pal-
aeoecoinformatics (Brewer et  al. 2012) (Table 5.1). For example, pollen, charcoal, and tree-
ring records have been compiled into global and regional databases, making data accessible
to all, and available for testing model outputs by hindcasting (Brewer et al. 2012, Gillson and
Marchant 2014).
The potential of these databases could be enhanced if palaeoecological data was made
more accessible to neo-ecologists and conservation planners, for example by translating
palaeo-data into easily useable, ecological metrics such as species richness, presence
absence data, and changes in ecosystem services (Power et al. 2010, Brewer et al. 2012, Dear-
ing et al. 2012). Different stakeholder groups including conservation decision makers, ecosys-
tem managers, development agencies, policy makers, and community groups, could facilitate
the integration of palaeo with ecological frameworks and conservation applications by iden-
tifying relevant questions to which palaeoecology can be applied. Modelling and simulation
tools could then integrate past, present, and future change, allowing the outcomes of differ-
ent management interventions to be simulated using long-term data, but under different
future scenarios. There is a need for user-friendly interfaces that show how ecosystems varied
in different climatic regimes and under different human-environment interactions, thereby
allowing policy relevant questions to be asked and answered (Gillson and Marchant 2014).
Search WWH ::




Custom Search