The changing biosphere: recent insights from paleoenvironmental science into drivers,mechanisms and impacts

Paleoenvironmental science has experienced a recent surge in interest and activity as concerns grow over global environmental change. Key research questions in the biotic realm of paleoenvironmental science focus on explaining climatic change at time scales of decades to centuries and understanding ecosystem responses to these changes. Biotic responses are increasingly being studied at smaller spatial scales to identify local factors that determine the sensitivity of a particular system to climatic change. These findings can then be applied to solving a variety of problems, such as setting conservation targets or testing mechanisms for observed climatic and biogeographic phenomena. Research approaches commonly used today include hypothesis testing, which has now become more sophisticated as paleoecologists and paleoclimatologists integrate with modellers. Other frameworks involve the quantitative integration of multiple proxy indicators and the use of extensive publicly available data networks to produce new datasets for paleoclimatic reconstructions and other applications.