Rull, V., Vegas-Vilarrúbia, T. and Montoya, E. (2017), Paleoecology as a guide to landscape conservation and restoration in the neotropical Gran Sabana, Past Global Changes Magazine, doi: 10.1111/bre.12222.
Abstract
A significant contribution of paleoecology to conservation and restoration practices is its ability to provide evidence of past ecological conditions, thereby permitting the identification of baselines, to which it would be desirable to return. Choosing the most desirable target is the first step in restoration planning, and a frequent option is to choose to restore the ecological conditions that existed prior to human disturbance (Willis et al. 2010). Another relevant conservation output that may be derived from paleoecological records is the response of ecological communities to past climate change as a model for anticipating potential ecological responses to future climate change (Vegas-Vilarrúbia et al. 2011). Here, we use these approaches to analyze the case of the Gran Sabana region, located in northern South America.
