zoo.ox.ac.uk
This is the first workshop of the PAGES Biodiversity Theme under Focus 4.
Conservation of biological diversity and provision of ecosystem services are now widely recognised as important goals in landscape planning. However, the landscape planning process is complex and requires a wide range of scenarios for informed decision making.
Typically the scientific input into scenario setting is based on modelling output but it is widely acknowledged that these are often constrained by the algorithms used and do not provide the level of detail and/or at the landscape scale relevant to the scenario under consideration. Some organisations are now supplementing the modelling output with information provided from historical records but rarely are palaeo-records ultilized in this way. It is therefore an excellent time to run a workshop to explore the breadth of fossil records available for scenario setting aim to to address the following research questions :
1. What are the best fossil proxies to map landscape patterns of biodiversity change over time?
2. What are the most suitable fossil records to inform on drivers of change in supporting services and variation in their spatial impact?
3. How can we expect the provision of services to change with predicted climate change and how does this vary across landscapes?
4. What trade-offs can we expect between different regulating services and how will this be manifest across the landscape?
5. What processes do we need and where in order to ensure the provision of important cultural services ?
This workshop has limited places. Please contact the organizers if you would like to participate.
Post-meeting material
McLauchlan KK, Williams JJ & Engstrom DR (2013) Nutrient cycling in the palaeorecord: Fluxes from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems, The Holocene, 23(11): 1635–1643 (link)