Using the Past to Predict the Future: The Public Land Survey, 19th Century Climate and the PalEON Project

Presentation for the Yi-Fu Seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Geography. Presented on February 15th by Simon Goring. The talk abstract is here: <strong>Using Historical Records to Help Predict the Future: The Public Land Survey, 19th Century Climate and the PalEON Project</strong> <em>Predicting the response of organisms to changing climates in the 21st century is a major conservation challenge. Standard practice uses the relationship between modern species ranges and climate to predict future distributions under various future climate scenarios. The widespread and significant land use conversion in North America, particularly in the upper Midwest, challenges the basic assumptions of this model. I use historical records of vegetation and climate to build a better understanding of the state of forests in the upper Midwest prior to European settlement. Pre-settlement forests show significantly different structure and composition than modern forests, and our interpretations of the kinds of climates that tree species can occupy is likely to be affected by the broad-scale changes brought about by agricultural conversion. This analysis forms part of the broader PalEON project, and I will highlight how the information we gain from historical data can inform and improve our estimates of future climate change, species distributions and, ultimately help inform conservation planning in the 21st century.</em>