BISON, GBIF AND FOSSIL INSECTS: RECONSTRUCTING PLEISTOCENE CLIMATE WITH DIGITIZED DATA

Fossil insects have been used to reconstruct Pleistocene paleoclimate since the 1970’s. Insects are used as climate proxy data because many insect species have specific temperature and humidity requirements. Since insects have long species durations, species preserved in Pleistocene deposits are almost always extant. Therefore, current species ranges can be used to determine paleoenvironment of fossil deposits.

I use GIS techniques to reconstruct paleoenvironment based on the modern ranges of fossil insects obtained from biological occurence databases, including BISON and GBIF. My method complements the Mutual Climate Range (MCR) method of paleoclimate reconstruction and provides additional paleoclimate information not available using standard methods.