3-Day IUCN Workshop: Use of prehistoric data to protect future biodiversity

Approaches at the intersection between macroecology, paleoecology, genomics and paleoclimatology are revealing the processes that regulate the severity of past climate and environmental change on biodiversity, offering exciting new prospects for using retrospective knowledge to better forecast and manage ecological outcomes in the face of future climate change. However, the full benefits of using knowledge of past climate-driven ecological changes to anticipate and manage biodiversity responses to changing climates in the Anthropocene is being hindered by the absence of a set of clear guidelines for how paleo-archives can be used to reverse trends in biodiversity loss.  

Guidelines for responsible management of Earth

We will show how responses of biodiversity to past climate change can be used directly by policy makers to guide the responsible management of the Earth’s ecosystems and diverse biota under trajectories of future climate change. To do this we will establish where and when rapid climate transitions, on human-relevant timescales, can be found in the paleoclimate record and show how these spatiotemporal reference points in Earth’s history can be used as vital laboratories for understanding the likely consequences of future global warming on rates of biodiversity loss and their effects on ecosystem properties and the goods and services they provide to humanity.

We will also focus on how technological advances at the frontiers between paleoecology, genomics and paleoclimatology can provide advanced warnings of the likely consequences of accelerated climate change on biodiversity at spatiotemporal scales that are directly relevant to conservation bodies and policymakers seeking to anticipate and adapt to rapid climate and ecological change.

Participants

Brian Huntley (Durham University)
Stephen T. Jackson (U.S. Geological Survey)
Bette Otto-Bliesner (National Center for Atmosphere Research)
Barry Brook (University of Tasmania)
Ludovic Orlando (Centre national de la recherche scientifique)
Tom Gilbert (University of Copenhagen)
Carsten Rahbek (University of Copenhagen)
Kathy Willis (Kew Royal Botanic Gardens)
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen (University of Copenhagen)
Stuart Brown (University of Adelaide)
Jessie Buettel (University of Tasmania)
David Bravo Nogues (University of Copenhagen)
Damien Anthony Fordham (University of Adelaide)

WHO: Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, is hosting and organizing the workshop commissioned by IUCN’s Climate Change Specialists Groups.

WHEN: 8 - 10 October 2018

WHERE: Copenhagen, Denmark

MORE INFO: http://ccsg-iucn.com/