Late Quaternary Biotic Communities across the Landscapes of the Americas

Dear Colleagues,

The late Quaternary in the Americas is a dynamic time marked by shifting climatic regimes, ecosystem change, and biodiversity loss across evolving landscapes. Climate change and associated environmental fluctuations influence biotic composition and distribution throughout the Americas. The reorganization of terrestrial ecosystems produces structural changes in biotic communities and interactions of surviving and newly co-existing species. A fundamental goal of Quaternary science is to understand the interrelationships between climate, environmental, and biotic changes. These relationships are complex, and despite over a century of research, remain incompletely understood. Improving our understanding requires the integration of data from individual localities from across the Western Hemisphere.

Issues and areas of contribution towards that fundamental goal abound. Ecological systems are dynamic and have a range of natural variability. Both the past and the present are informed by the study of the long-term changes, natural variability, and palaeoecological data. Spatial and temporal analyses can illuminate causal factors of change while points in time create baselines of ecological conditions, species distributions, and abundances that are critical to assessing changes through time. Understanding how humans may have influenced ecosystems or landscapes is dependent on knowledge of prior baseline conditions. Further, the diversity, biogeography, and temporal distribution of terrestrial biotic biodiversity prior to terminal Pleistocene extinctions is fundamental to resolving late Pleistocene biotic dynamics.

This Special Issue focuses on the biodiversity, biochronology, and biogeography of the late Quaternary Americas in order to explore the changing landscapes, sensitive and resilient species, baselines, and other critical aspects. Discussion of these issues will contribute to the state of knowledge regarding the Pleistocene and Holocene, and is relevant to future shifts in natural systems across the world.

Prof. Dr. Eileen Johnson
Prof. Dr. Joaquín Arroyo-Cabrales
Dr. John A. Moretti
Guest Editors

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• late quaternary
• biotic communities
• biodiversity
• biogeography landscapes