Use of Pollen and Ancient DNA as Conservation Baselines for Offshore Islands in New Zealand

Islands play a key role globally in the conservation of endemic species. Many island reserves have been highly modified since human colonization, and their restoration and management usually occur without knowledge of their prehuman state. However, conservation paleoecology is increasingly being rec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Conservation biology Vol. 28; no. 1; pp. 202 - 212
Main Authors:	WILMSHURST, JANET M, MOAR, NEVILLE T, WOOD, JAMIE R, BELLINGHAM, PETER J, FINDLATER, AMY M, ROBINSON, JAMES J, STONE, CLIVE
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Hoboken, NJ Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-02-2014 Wiley Periodicals Inc Wiley-Blackwell
Subjects:	Animal, plant and microbial ecology Applied ecology Biodiversity Biodiversity conservation Biological and medical sciences Charcoal Climax forests Coniferous forests conifers Conservation biology Conservation of Natural Resources - methods conservation paleoecology Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife Contributed Papers Dacrydium deforestación deforestation DNA DNA, Plant - analysis Earth sciences Earth, ocean, space Ecosystem Environmental degradation: ecosystems survey and restoration Environmental restoration Exact sciences and technology extinciones extinctions Forest conservation forest succession Forests Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General aspects. Techniques Generalities Human Activities human settlements Humans indigenous species island restoration Islands Mass Spectrometry New Zealand Paleobotany Paleoecology paleoecología de conservación Paleontology Paleontology: general Parks, reserves, wildlife conservation. Endangered species: population survey and restocking Pollen Pollen - chemistry pollen record Polymerase Chain Reaction prehuman prehumano registro de polen restauración de islas Rhopalostylis Soil - chemistry Taxa trees Vegetation New Zealand Oceania Deforestation conservation paleoecology Dacrydium Extinction Conservation Ecology Rhopalostylis Island Offshore island restoration extinctions DNA pollen record Gymnospermae prehuman Coniferales Spermatophyta Pollen Ecological recovery Paleoecology Environmental protection paleoecología de conservación prehumano restauración de islas extinciones registro de polen deforestation deforestación
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Summary:	Islands play a key role globally in the conservation of endemic species. Many island reserves have been highly modified since human colonization, and their restoration and management usually occur without knowledge of their prehuman state. However, conservation paleoecology is increasingly being recognized as a tool that can help to inform both restoration and conservation of island reserves by providing prehuman vegetation baselines. Many of New Zealand's mammal‐free offshore islands are foci for biological diversity conservation and, like many islands in the Polynesian region, were deforested following initial human settlement. Therefore, their current restoration, replanting, and management are guided either by historic vegetation descriptions or the occurrence of species on forested islands. We analyzed pollen and ancient DNA in soil cores from an offshore island in northern New Zealand. The result was a 2000‐year record of vegetation change that began >1200 years before human settlement and spanned 550 years of human occupation and 180 years of forest succession since human occupation ceased. Between prehuman and contemporary forests there was nearly a complete species turnover including the extirpation of a dominant conifer and a palm tree. The podocarp‐dominated forests were replaced by a native but novel angiosperm‐dominated forest. There is no modern analog of the prehuman forests on any northern New Zealand island, and those islands that are forested are dominated by angiosperms which are assumed to be climax forests. The pollen and DNA evidence for conifer‐ and palm‐rich forests in the prehuman era challenge this climax forest assumption. Prehuman vegetation records can thus help to inform future restoration of degraded offshore islands by informing the likely rate and direction of successional change; helping to determine whether natural rates of succession are preferable to more costly replanting programs; and providing past species lists if restoration replanting is desired. Uso de Polen y ADN Antiguo como Líneas de Base de Conservación en Islas Litorales en Nueva Zelanda
Bibliography:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12150 Employment's Science and Innovation Group istex:34329E7328BFEBD34BB9C87EC86DD2D02156BCC9 ArticleID:COBI12150 ark:/67375/WNG-RD6HK9VC-2 Crown Research Institutes from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0888-8892 1523-1739
DOI:	10.1111/cobi.12150