Climate change and human activity are going to combine to create new challenges to biodiversity in the coming century. Over the last decade, it’s become increasingly apparent that 20th century conservation strategies may be poorly suited to protect species in a changing world. Take the Endangered Species Act of 1973 — it’s a place-based, […]
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
For decades, paleontology was broadly a descriptive science; it was seen by many as a novelty, but not necessarily relevant to the study of modern systems. This has changed as our field has become more quantitative, but also as methodological advances have led to better dating and data that have allowed […]
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
What happens when large herbivores disappear from landscapes? Much of my research to date has used the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna as a natural experiment, documenting the cascading effects of the loss of large herbivores on the plant communities they left behind. To do this, I marshall the paleoecological […]
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Paleoecological research involves equal parts detective work, mental time-travel, and story-telling. Clues from the past are collected and pieced together to map out what landscapes might have looked like, and how they may have changed through time. It’s not unlike walking through the set of a play after all the […]
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes