QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT OF CONSERVATION PALEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH

Conservation paleobiology is an applied field that uses information from the past to inform conservation decisions and practice. As with similar applied fields (e.g.., conservation biology), a “gap” between research and implementation exists when research findings are not translated into practice or policy. Here, we quantified the research-implementation gap in conservation paleobiology by conducting a systematic literature review of studies that mentioned a link to either management, restoration, or conservation. For each study, we collected data on whether authors had a conservation affiliation, documented implementation (action vs. theory), what type of environment, ecological focus, taxonomic classification, and proxies were used, and whether data used were ‘near’ or ‘deep’ time (>2.6 million years ago) geohistorical records. To further investigate if studies resulted in implementation outside of peer-reviewed publication, a brief survey was sent to authors from studies that made a theoretical recommendation (theory-specific studies) or discussed the success or failure of implementation (action studies).

Our results indicate that only 3.6% of studies (10.1% when survey responses were included) crossed the research-implementation gap. The only significant category we coded for was author affiliation: action studies were more likely to have a conservation-affiliated author. Most studies (64%) only provided a general statement describing how their results could influence management, restoration, or conservation practice. This evaluation highlights the need to focus on how to better bridge the gap between research and implementation in conservation paleobiology, for which we offer practical suggestions.