Integrating paleoecology into landscape management

Abstract

Paleoecology has traditionally been used to examine how ecosystems evolve through time. Focusing on fossil plant reconstructions, conventional approaches examine the origin, expansion, contraction, and dynamic processes influencing plant communities over time. Recognizing that vegetation types are predominately influenced by climate, paleoecological records are frequently used to reconstruct climate through time, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. In addition to examining vegetation and climate, evidence from natural disturbances, including charred plant remains from wilfires deposited in lake sediments, has increased in recent decades, enabling researchers to examine fire dynamics. Increasingly, there is growing urgency to integrate paleoecological studies and landscape management, rendering unique spatial (local to global) and temporal (years to millennia) perspectives that offer valuable insights for land managers today. This manuscript presents a suggested framework to acheive this goal, with emphasis on integrating paleofire data and managment applications. The framework illustrates several potential applications by scale, including direct local-scale applications within a managed municipal watershed, and medium-to-long-term perspectives on the causes and consequences of large fire events in forested ecosystems.