Simon Fraser University
Putting the Ecology Back into Paleoecology - Sponsored by the Canadian Association of Palynologists
Co-chairs: Terri Lacourse (UVic) tlacours@uvic.ca; and Marlow Pellatt (Parks Canada)
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Biotic remains preserved in Quaternary archives form the basis for much paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstruction. These fossils are often the only means to examine past ecosystems and the subsequent inference of paleoclimates. With the recent importance of global climate change to society, the ecological application of paleoecological studies appears to have been neglected. This session will focus on the application of paleoecological techniques in understanding long-term ecosystem structure and function leading to inferences regarding ecological properties such as resilience, ecosystem thresholds, disturbance regimes, and testing hypotheses about ecological processes such as competition, species interactions, and migration. The intent of this session is to focus on the ecological component of Quaternary science, the mechanism that makes fossil-based paleoenvironmental reconstruction possible |
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