Landscape-Level Paleoecological Reconstructions for Kaua'i

BURNEY 9707260 该项目旨在了解夏威夷群岛考艾岛上人类活动之前生态系统的动态，并查明人类活动时期的环境变化导致本土动物和低地植物群崩溃的过程。 创建过去环境及其变化的详细图片的总体方法将通过古生态，古生物和考古遗址的多学科研究。 从该岛第四纪晚期沉积物中收集的岩芯将为过去的植被，水化学，火灾发生和环境灾难提供证据。 其中一些遗址还含有土著鸟类和软体动物的骨骼;将对这些遗址进行挖掘，以重建过去的动物群。 人类时期的花粉和木炭证据将提供人类土地利用模式变化的另一种记录，这可以与外来动物引入的古生物学证据以及对过去人类人口密度和分布的考古评估进行比较。 测量前人类灭绝率将丰富气候与人类活动在全球灭绝模式的讨论。 获得高分辨率的古气候记录还将允许生成和测试有关飓风频率，火灾发生和气候突变（如厄尔尼诺等海洋现象）的假设。 这项研究的一个实际目标是全面了解该岛人类活动之前的环境，作为与国家热带植物园合作进行的恢复生态工作的指南，该植物园毗邻主要地点。 从古生态数据的景观重建可能提供最好的参考生态系统作为生态恢复工作的模式。

BURNEY 9707260 This project seeks to understand the dynamics of prehuman ecosystems on the island of Kaua'i in the Hawaiian Islands, and to identify the processes whereby environmental changes of the human period have led to the collapse of the native fauna and lowland flora. The overall methodology for creating a detailed picture of past environments and their changes will be through multidisciplinary study of paleoecological, paleontological, and archaeological sites. Cores collected from the late Quaternary sediments of the island will provide evidence for past vegetation, water chemistry, fire occurrence, and environmental catastrophes. Some of these sites also contain bones of indigenous birds and molluscs; these sites will be excavated in order to reconstruct past faunal assemblages. Pollen and charcoal evidence from the human period will provide an another record of changing human land-use patterns, which can be compared to paleontological evidence of the introduction of exotic animals and archaeological assessments of past human population densities and distributions. Measuring prehuman extinction rates will enrich discussions of climate vs. human activity in global extinction patterns. Obtaining high-resolution paleoclimate records will also permit the generation and testing of hypotheses regarding past changes in hurricane frequency, fire occurrence, and abrupt climate shifts like those to be expected from marine phenomena such as El Nino. A practical goal of this research will be to develop a comprehensive picture of prehuman environments of the island, as a guide to restoration ecology efforts underway in collaboration with the National Tropical Botanical Garden, which is adjacent to the primary sites. Landscape reconstructions from paleoecological data are likely to provide the best reference ecosystems available as models for ecological restoration efforts.