ABSTRACT
Although many of the questions that paleoecologists and landscape ecologists consider are aligned, the two disciplines remain largely independent. In this chapter, we consider the promise of a more integrated ‘paleo-landscape ecology’ by considering how paleoecology can contribute to four critical foci of landscape ecological research: the emergence of landscape heterogeneity, disturbance regime dynamics, flows of energy and matter, and natural resource management. Paleoecological studies can play a valuable role in answering these questions by offering an extended temporal context and providing a context for observational studies. Thus, paleoecological studies provide much more than simply providing data for model parameterisation and evaluation. However, issues of scale remain fundamental challenges for integrating paleoecology and landscape ecology; in particular, the temporal extents considered by the two disciplines are very different, and paleoecological data are often ‘less spatial’ than contemporary ecological data. Despite these potential hurdles, there are potentially significant benefits of a combined paleoecological and landscape ecological approach, as we illustrate through case studies considering late-Holocene landscape transformation in New Zealand and the reintroduction of beaver to the United Kingdom.
