450008 VU Historical ecology and conservation paleobiology (2016S)

Students will learn about the anthropocene, the basic concepts of Conservation Paleobiology (i.e., application of paleobiological methods to questions of conservation and management). They will be introduced to geochronology and environmental proxies in the anthropocene and the fidelity of the younger fossil record. Students will learn about the concept of shifting baselines, about long-term persistence of ecological communties, community disassembly, top-down and bottom-up stressors of ecosystems. Students will be able to perform a taphofacies analysis and evaluate taphonomic clocks, to quantitatively evaluate time-averaging, draw historical inference from core data and are able to develop their own project.