perspective: Losing time? Incorporating a deeper temporal perspective into modern ecology

opinion and perspectives ISSN 1948-6596 perspective Losing time? Incorporating a deeper temporal perspective into modern ecology Felisa A. Smith 1 and Alison G. Boyer 2 Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA. fasmith@unm.edu; http://biology.unm.edu/fasmith/ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA. alison.boyer@utk.edu; http://eeb.bio.utk.edu/boyer/index.html Abstract. Ecologists readily acknowledge that a temporal perspective is essential for untangling ecological complexity, yet most studies remain of relatively short duration. Despite a number of excellent essays on the topic, only recently have ecologists begun to explicitly incorporate a historical component. Here we provide several concrete examples drawn largely from our own work that clearly illustrate how the adoption of a longer temporal perspective produces results significantly at odds with those obtained when relying solely on modern data. We focus on projects in the areas of conservation, global change and macroecology because such work often relies on broad-scale or synthetic data that may be heavily influenced by historic or prehistoric anthropogenic factors. Our analysis suggests that considerable care should be taken when extrapolating from studies of extant systems. Few, if any, modern systems have been unaffected by anthropogenic influences. We encourage the further integration between paleoecologists and ecologists, who have been historically segregated into different departments, scientific societies and scientific cultures. Keywords: climate change, conservation, macroecology, paleoecology, palaeoecology, woodrat The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is a quintessential symbol of the Great Plains. As the fastest land mammal in the Americas, it can reach close to ~100 km/h and can sustain speeds of 45 km/h for long distances (Byers 1997). Much of its physiology, morphology and life history reflect an optimization for being swift; pronghorn have oversized hearts and lungs, a 320° field of vision, hollow hair and overlong gestation for their size (Byers 1997). Understanding the selective pressures that led to such specialized adaptations is difficult without the knowledge that the pronghorn co-evolved with a suite of now extinct predators, including the American cheetah (Micracinonyx trumani) (Byers 1997, Barlow 2001). As the only surviving member of the once speciose North American family Antilocapridae, the pronghorn no longer has effective natural predators. Consequently, many of its social, morphological and physiological traits have little apparent modern selective value (Byers 1997). Ecologists recognize the anachronistic nature of animals like the pronghorn, but more as a curiosity rather than as a concrete example of the substantial alteration of ecosystems that occurred in the late Quaternary. Although work investigating the ecology and life-history characteristics of tropical and temperate plants has proposed that numerous adaptations for dispersal or regrowth arose in response to foraging by now-extinct megafauna (Janzen and Martin 1982, Wing and Tiffney 1987, Barlow 2001), in general, the implications of the prehistoric loss of megafauna in the late Pleistocene have been overlooked. Yet, these animals undoubtedly played key roles in terms of ecosystem structure and function; their abrupt disappearance some 11,000 years ago must have profoundly influenced ecosystem dynamics (Martin 1967, Donlan et al. 2005). How many other life-history, ecological or distributional features of extant animals and plants are due in some part to now-extinct components of the ecosystem? © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society — frontiers of biogeography 4.1, 2012