Climatic and Habitat Inference from Features of Mammalian Paleocommunities

Paleomammalogists have explored in recent years a variety of techniques for inferring past climate and vegetation from structural characteristics of fossil mammal communities and faunas. These techniques hold enormous promise for expanding temporal and geographic ranges over which we can make accurate, objective reconstructions of terrestrial habitat characteristics and local or regional climate. However, we badly need a comparison, evaluation, and synthesis of the various methods. This working group will evaluate the various methods by checking them against the same extensive dataset on extant mammal communities, and subsequently will apply the techniques to Quaternary and Tertiary data, both to test out the techniques in practice and to shed light on selected paleoecological questions.