In the context of accelerating environmental change, there is an urgent need to identify ecosystem conservation, restoration, and management strategies likely to support bio-diverse and adaptive ecosystems into the future. The field of historical ecology has generated a substantial body of recommendations for ecosystem management, yet these insights have never been synthesized. We reviewed >200 historical ecology studies and analyzed recommendations for ecosystem management emerging from the field. The majority of studies (similar to 90%) derived from North American and Europe, with forests being the focus of nearly half (48%) of all papers. Papers emphasized the need to protect and restore both habitat remnants and modified ecosystems in management, the value of ecosystems as cultural landscapes, and the importance of adopting a landscape-scale perspective for ecosystem management. Nearly one-quarter contained a recommendation that challenged status quo management, underscoring the value of a historical perspective in setting management goals, strategies, and targets. Fewer than 12% of papers contained recommendations that explicitly addressed ongoing or projected climate change, suggesting opportunities to integrate findings from historical ecology with other perspectives to create forward-looking management strategies that are rooted in place and past. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Beller, EE; McClenachan, L; Zavaleta, ES; Larsen, LG
Past forward: Recommendations from historical ecology for ecosystem management
Global Ecology And Conservation