Looking forward through the past: identification of 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology

1. Priority question exercises are becoming an increasingly common tool to frame future agendas in conservation and ecological science. They are an effective way to identify research foci that advance the field and that also have high policy and conservation relevance. 2. To date, there has been no coherent synthesis of key questions and priority research areas for palaeoecology, which combines biological, geochemical and molecular techniques in order to reconstruct past ecological and environmental systems on time-scales from decades to millions of years. 3. We adapted a well-established methodology to identify 50 priority research questions in palaeoecology. Using a set of criteria designed to identify realistic and achievable research goals, we selected questions from a pool submitted by the international palaeoecology research community and relevant policy practitioners. 4. The integration of online participation, both before and during the workshop, increased international engagement in question selection. 5. The questions selected are structured around six themes: human–environment interactions in the Anthropocene; biodiversity, conservation and novel ecosystems; biodiversity over long time-scales; ecosystem processes and biogeochemical cycling; comparing, combining and synthesizing information from multiple records; and new developments in palaeoecology. 6. Future opportunities in palaeoecology are related to improved incorporation of uncertainty into reconstructions, an enhanced understanding of ecological and evolutionary dynamics and processes and the continued application of long-term data for better-informed landscape management

ENSO signature in botanical proxy time series extends terrestrial El Nino record into the (sub)tropics

[1] The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) exerts significant control over the amount of Florida winter precipitation. We use a local near-annual resolved palaeobotanical proxy record from southern Florida to test for historic ENSO variability over the past 125 years. Palaeobotanical proxies from a Florida wetland, pollen counts, and a new drought-stress proxy based on leaf epidermal cell densities are used as indicators of moisture availability during the winter growing season. Spectral analysis and band-pass filtering of the proxy records reveal significant variability within the 2–7 year bandwidth characteristic of ENSO, as well as decadal signatures. A maximum likelihood palaeoprecipitation reconstruction of the pollen record based on modern vegetation distributions shows values and variability comparable to instrumental records. The approach shows the dominant control of ENSO on Florida vegetation and provides a powerful means to detect discrete ENSO variability in older intervals