The Importance of Surprising Results and Best Practices in Historical Ecology
The Importance of Surprising Results and Best Practices in Historical Ecology
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DOI：
10.1093/biosci/biv100
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发表时间：
2015-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
10.1
通讯作者：
Drew, Joshua A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
McClenachan, Loren;Cooper, Andrew B.;Drew, Joshua A.
不断发展的历史生态学领域描述了过去的种群丰富度、生物多样性、空间结构和生态功能，这些对于理解生态动态和恢复潜力是重要的。然而，由于历史生态分析经常纳入非传统数据来源(即档案材料和口述历史)，并可能揭示物种和种群的意外变化，因此其结果受到客观性和质量控制的批评，这可能会阻碍其广泛应用。在这里，我们认为，历史来源揭示的令人惊讶的结果对生态和保护至关重要，提供了新的假说，可以用更多的数据和对生态动态的新理解来检验，这些数据和新的理解具有直接的保护意义。我们概述了利用非传统来源进行与保护相关的历史生态学研究的四个最佳实践，我们认为，如果在设计历史生态分析时考虑这些实践，结果可以为过去的变化、当前的生态系统结构和未来的恢复目标提供可靠的洞察。
The growing field of historical ecology describes population abundances, biodiversity, spatial structure, and ecological functioning in the past, which are important to understanding ecological dynamics and recovery potential. However, because historical ecological analyses often incorporate nontraditional data sources (i.e., archival materials and oral histories) and may reveal unexpected changes to species and populations, the results are subject to critiques of objectivity and quality control, which may hamper their broad application. Here, we argue that surprising results revealed by historical sources are essential for ecology and conservation, providing new hypotheses that can be tested with additional data and new understandings of ecological dynamics that have immediate conservation implications. We outline four best practices in conducting conservation-relevant historical ecology research using nontraditional sources, and we argue that if these practices are considered in designing historical ecological analyses, the results can provide reliable insight into past change, current ecosystem structure, and future recovery targets.