The response of aquatic ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada (California, USA) to late Quaternary hydroclimate changes remains mostly unknown. Mono Lake, a large endorheic lake just east of the Sierra Nevada, contains an expanded archive of laminated sediments that can be used to examine the response of benthos to environmental changes. Fossil ostracodes from a radiocarbon‐dated core were used to examine paleoecologic changes from...

Aim Owing to its diverse bioclimatic zones, long human history and intense anthropogenic impacts, Africa provides a model system for studying how global terrestrial ecosystems might respond to accelerated socio‐environmental stress. Africa is particularly vulnerable to climate change and human impact, and insufficient baseline data hamper current environmental management efforts. Using palaeoecological data, we seek to identif...

Aim Dryland ecosystems, such as those in southern Arabia, are particularly vulnerable to climate and land‐use change. Aridification and human subsistence changes at the end of the Holocene Humid Period at 6–4 ka have been used as an iconic example for evaluating such impacts to resilience of arid systems. Although records of ancient environments can provide critical insight into the biotic and abiotic mechanisms that alter eco...

Aim The climate tolerances of many species are broader than those estimated from current native ranges. Indeed, the niches of some Afromontane trees are up to 50% larger after incorporation of fossil data. This expansion could reduce estimates of species' future range loss owing to climate change but also implies strong non‐climatic limitations on species' current ranges. One such limitation is land use, which fossil data sugg...

African ecosystems are at great risk. Despite their ecological and economic importance, long‐standing ideas about African forest ecology and biogeography, such as the timing of changes in forest extent and the importance of disturbance, have been unable to be tested due to a lack of sufficiently long records. Here, we present the longest continuous terrestrial record of late Quaternary vegetation from southern Africa collected...

Aim Climate and land‐use change will have a dramatic impact on future ecosystems through alterations to species ranges and community composition. When forming conservation strategies, correlative species distribution models are often created to assess risks for individual species. These models are based on the assumption of climatic equilibrium, such that the modern range is representative of the full range of conditions under...