Addressing priority questions of conservation science with palaeontological data

Abstract

Palaeontologists often ask identical questions to those asked by ecologists. Despite this, ecology is considered a core discipline of conservation biology, while palaeontologists are rarely consulted in the protection of species, habitats and ecosystems. The recent emergence of conservation palaeobiology presents a big step towards better integration of palaeontology in conservation science, although its focus on historical baselines may not fully capture the potential contributions of geohistorical data to conservation science. In this essay we address previously defined priority questions in conservation and consider which of these questions may be answerable using palaeontological data. Using a statistical assessment of surveys, we find that conservation biologists and younger scientists have a more optimistic view of potential palaeontological contributions to the field compared to experienced palaeontologists. Participants considered questions related to climate change and marine ecosystems to be the best addressable with palaeontological data. As these categories are also deemed most relevant by ecologists and receive the greatest research effort in conservation, they are the natural choice for future academic collaboration. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?’

Colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity

“…We thus need to examine these biases more deeply and consider how current research practices in paleontology are hindering efforts to increase diversity across all aspects of our discipline. This is especially crucial if paleontology is to play a part in providing a long-term perspective on Earth's biodiversity in order to sustain current biodiversity through conservation (48,49).…”

The effects of geographic range size and abundance on extinction during a time of “sluggish”’ evolution

“…Determining the correlates of extinction is crucial to understanding macroevolutionary processes operating on geologic timescales (Jablonski 1986; McKinney 1997; Kiessling and Aberhan 2007; Payne and Finnegan 2007; Meseguer et al 2015; Saupe et al 2015) and for identifying taxa at potential risk of extinction today (Lee and Jetz 2011; Finnegan et al 2015; Kiessling et al 2019; Smits and Finnegan 2019). The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, an indicator of the global conservation status of biological species, uses both abundance and geographic range size as determinants of extinction risk for modern species (IUCN 2001).…”

Morphological traits of reef corals predict extinction risk but not conservation status

“…Irrespective of the modelled extinction risk or assessed conservation status, the extinction of reef corals is unlikely to be severe in the near future, simply because population sizes of even “rare” species are way above typical extinction‐prone species (Dietzel et al., 2021), although this could change rapidly as thermal stress intensifies (Hughes et al., 2018). Practitioners in conservation science are, of course, more interested in decadal changes (Kiessling et al., 2019). However, experimental studies that are carried out on smaller temporal scales (hours to weeks) have similar scaling concerns but still provide valuable information on the stress tolerance of organisms (e.g., Pörtner, 2010).…”