PALEOBIOLOGY IN NOVEL ECOSYSTEMS: LESSONS FOR CONSERVATION FROM BENEATH THE PAVEMENT (Invited Presentation)

In a rapidly changing world, scientists have begun looking to information from the past to better plan for the future, employing long-term data captured in the fossil and other geohistorical records to forecast the trajectories of species, communities, and ecosystems in the novel conditions of the Anthropocene. Urban areas will continue to be among the landscapes most severely affected by global change. Regional fossil and geohistorical records can bolster our ability to respond to urbanization challenges by providing new insight into organisms’ ecological flexibility and outlining previously unconsidered baselines of ecosystem structure and function. Though such records may seem inaccessible– literally, trapped beneath pavement– we use Los Angeles (California, USA), as a comprehensive case study to demonstrate the availability and utility of these deep and near time records: a Paleobiology in Novel Ecosystems approach, drawing heavily on digitized data resources such as museum collections databases, historic archives, community (citizen) science (e.g., iNaturalist), and open-access paleoecological databases (e.g., Neotoma), as well as emphasizing opportunities for increased data transparency and future digitization opportunities by working with private-sector mitigation practitioners. Our case studies span the needs of managing fire regimes under a changing climate in the wildland-urban interface; interpreting vegetation change over time using pollen cores and historic photographs; tracking the isotopic ecology of a common mesocarnivores; and understanding native and non-native species turnover through an archaeological lens in a wetland with a long anthropogenic history. This new conceptual framework and its applications represent the collaborative efforts of academics, conservation practitioners, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. Integrating modern and deeper-time biodiversity records can reframe conservation goals in cities—the places where most people on earth now live.