Paleozoology and Paleoenvironments: Fundamentals, Assumptions, Techniques

Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
One Why a Book on Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction from Faunal Remains?
	A Bit More History
	Volume Structure
	What We Do Not Do
	Final Comments
Two Fundamentals of Ecology and Biogeography
	Historical Sketch
		Biogeography
		Ecology
		Summary
	Ecological Tolerances
	Environments and Niches
	Ecological Succession and Climax
	What Is a Species to Do When the Environment Changes?
	Top-Down or Bottom-Up Ecology
		Resolution and Scale
		Spatial and Temporal Scale
		Kinds of Paleoenvironmental Change
	Adaptation (Evolutionary Genetic) or Adjustment (Phenotypic Plasticity)
	Conclusion
Three Analytical Assumptions
	Assumption 1: Uniformitarianism
	Assumption 2: Nearest Living Relative
	Assumption 3: Ecological Tolerances
	Assumption 4: Taxonomic Presence/Absence
	Assumption 5: Faunal Composition
	Assumption 6: Taxonomic Identification
	Assumption 7: Sample Size and Taphonomy
	Assumption 8: Small Bodies or Large Bodies
	Assumption 9: Temporal Resolution
	Assumption 10: Ecotone
	Discussion
Four Background of Select Paleozoological Samples
	Boomplaas Cave
		Paleoenvironmental Summary
	Homestead Cave
		Paleoenvironmental Summary
	Summary
Five Environmental Reconstructions Based on the Presence/Absence of Taxa
	A Bit of History
	What about the Absence of a Taxon?
	From Faunal List to Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction
	Ordination
		Correspondence Analysis
		Detrended Correspondence Analysis
		Other Ordination Techniques
	One Species at a Time (Usually)
		Indicator Taxa
		Climatograph
	Multiple Taxa
		Area of Sympatry
		Mutual Climatic Range (Coexistence Approach)
		The UTM-MCR Technique
		Discussion
	Summary
Six Environmental Reconstruction Based on Taxonomic Abundances
	Taxonomic Presences or Abundances?
		Is the Analysis of Taxonomic Presences a Safer Alternative?
		How to Gain (or Lose) Confidence
	Abundances of a Few Taxa
		Abundances of Indicator Taxa
		Abundance Indices
		Discussion
	History of Analyzing Taxonomic Abundances
	Abundances of All Taxa in Assemblages
		Ordination of Taxonomic Abundances
		Other Techniques to Examine Abundances of All Taxa
	Summary
Seven Taxon-Free Techniques
	Taxon Free: What It Is and What It Is Not
	A Brief History
	Autecological Approaches
		Ecomorphology
		Paleodietary Reconstruction
	Synecological Approaches
		Habitat Metrics
			Ecological Diversity Analysis
			Taxonomic Habitat Index
			The Bioclimatic Model
		Ecometrics
			Body Size Distributions
			Dental Hypsodonty
	Summary
Eight Environmental Inferences Based on Taxonomic Diversity
	What Is Diversity?
	How Is Diversity Quantified?
		Taxonomic Richness
			Sampling to Redundancy
			Rarefaction
			Regression Analysis
		Taxonomic Heterogeneity
		Taxonomic Evenness
		Which Metric Should I Choose?
	Practical Considerations with Fossil Data
		Taxonomic Scope
		Recovery and Analytical Methods
		Agent of Accumulation
		Differential Fragmentation
		Differential Skeletal Element Representation
		Time Averaging
	Paleoenvironmental Implications of Taxonomic Diversity
		The Varied Response of Diversity to Environmental Gradients
		Paleoenvironmental Inferences
	Case Study
		Differential Identifiability
		Differential Fragmentation
		Skeletal Element Representation
		Time Averaging
		Agent of Bone Accumulation
		Interpretation
	Summary
Nine Transfer Functions and Quantitative Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction
	How It Works
	The Analytical Toolkit
		Thackeray’s Method
		Quantitative Bioclimatic Models
		Dental Ecometrics
		Tree Cover from Taxon-Free Characterizations
		Future Prospects
	The No-Analog Problem
		Further Cause for Concern
	Summary
Ten Size Clines as Paleoenvironmental Indicators
	Size Clines in Modern Organisms
		Bergmann’s Rule: More than Just Temperature
		The Island Rule
		Summary
	Assumptions, Why Measure, and Method Basics
		Assumptions
		Why Measure?
		Method Basics
	Size Clines as a Paleoenvironmental Proxy
		One Way to Go about It
		Bergmann’s Rule and Past Temperature Change
		Forage Availability and Predation in Large Herbivores
	Summary
Eleven Some Final Thoughts
	Conservation Paleozoology
	Environments of Human Biological and Cultural Evolution
	What Next?
	Final Thoughts
Glossary
References
Index