Exploring the Interface Between Planetary Boundaries and Palaeoecology

TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring the Interface Between Planetary Boundaries and Palaeoecology

AU - Gillson, Lindsey

AU - Seddon, Alistair

AU - Mottl, Ondřej

AU - Zhang, Ke

AU - Kirsten, Kelly

AU - Gell, Peter

AU - Marchant, Rob A

AU - Schwörer, Christoph

AU - Razanatsoa, Estelle

AU - Lane, Paul J

AU - Courtney-Mustaphi, Colin J

AU - Dearing, John

N1 - © 2025 The Author(s). Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2025/1/16

Y1 - 2025/1/16

N2 - The concepts of planetary boundaries are influential in the sustainability literature and assist in delineating the 'safe operating spaces' beyond which critical Earth system processes could collapse. Moving away from our current trajectory towards 'hothouse Earth' will require knowledge of how Earth systems have varied throughout the Holocene, and whether and how far we have deviated from past ranges of variability. Such information can inform decisions about where change could be resisted, accepted or where adaptation is inevitable. The need for information on long-term (Holocene) change provides an interface for palaeoecology and sustainability that remains underexploited. In this position paper, we explore this interface, first discussing the need for long-term perspectives and introducing examples where palaeoecology has been used in defining safe operating spaces and constraining limits of acceptable change. We describe advances in quantitative methods for analysis of time-series data that strengthen the contribution of palaeoecology to the concepts of planetary boundaries and safe operating spaces. We consider the importance of issues of scaling from landscape to regional and global scales in operationalising planetary boundaries concepts. We distil principles for this field of research going forward and introduce three case studies which will form the basis of research on these topics.

AB - The concepts of planetary boundaries are influential in the sustainability literature and assist in delineating the 'safe operating spaces' beyond which critical Earth system processes could collapse. Moving away from our current trajectory towards 'hothouse Earth' will require knowledge of how Earth systems have varied throughout the Holocene, and whether and how far we have deviated from past ranges of variability. Such information can inform decisions about where change could be resisted, accepted or where adaptation is inevitable. The need for information on long-term (Holocene) change provides an interface for palaeoecology and sustainability that remains underexploited. In this position paper, we explore this interface, first discussing the need for long-term perspectives and introducing examples where palaeoecology has been used in defining safe operating spaces and constraining limits of acceptable change. We describe advances in quantitative methods for analysis of time-series data that strengthen the contribution of palaeoecology to the concepts of planetary boundaries and safe operating spaces. We consider the importance of issues of scaling from landscape to regional and global scales in operationalising planetary boundaries concepts. We distil principles for this field of research going forward and introduce three case studies which will form the basis of research on these topics.

KW - Earth, Planet

KW - Climate Change

KW - Conservation of Natural Resources

U2 - 10.1111/gcb.70017

DO - 10.1111/gcb.70017

M3 - Review article

C2 - 39817589

SN - 1354-1013

VL - 31

JO - Global Change Biology

JF - Global Change Biology

IS - 1

M1 - e70017

ER -