paleonet New NRC report: "The Geological Record of Ecological Dynamics"

["Karl W. Flessa" <kflessa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paleonet readers may want to take a look at a report just issued by the National
Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).  

The “Geological Record of Ecological Dynamics: Understanding the Biotic Effects
of Future Environmental Change” identifies research priorities at the interface
of ecology and paleontology.  

Produced by a committee consisting of both ecologists and paleontologists, the
report provides ecologists with background on techniques for obtaining and
evaluating geohistorical information, and provides paleontologists with
background on the nature of ecological phenomena amenable to analysis in the
geological record.

The report can be read online for free. View, download and/or order a hard copy
at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11209.html

From the Executive Summary:

“Longer-term historical perspectives are essential for answering a host of
questions about the ecological dynamics of present day environmental systems and
about feedbacks between biotic systems and environmental change, including
climate change. The geologic record—the organic remains, biogeochemical signals,
and associated sediments of the geological record—provides unique access to
environmental and ecological history in regions lacking monitoring data and for
periods predating human impacts. It also provides information about a broader
range of global environmental conditions than exist today, as well as insights
into biological processes and consequences that are expressed only over longer
time intervals and the opportunity to discover general principles of ecological
organization. Understanding how ecological processes scale up from short-term to
evolutionary time frames is critical to a full understanding of the biotic
response to environmental change, and thus to developing sound policies to guide
future management. Advances during the past 10-20 years have transformed the
ability of earth scientists to extract critical biological and environmental
information from the geologic record. These advances at the interface of earth
and biological sciences—combined with a greatly improved capacity for accurate
dating of past events, the development of high-resolution timescales, and new
techniques for correlation—set the stage for this assessment of research
priorities in geohistorical analysis of biotic systems.”


-- 
Karl W. Flessa
Department of Geosciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA
(520) 621-7336

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