In recent decades, there has been a growing number of studies exploring the historical dimensions of the interconnectedness of human societies and the environment. A core approach in this field is historical ecology. We analyzed 544 historical-ecological papers to assess patterns and trends in the field. We found a high degree of interdisciplinarity with a focus on local case studies, of periods of fewer than 500 years, analyzing archival sources through quantitative approaches. The proportion of papers containing management recommendations has increased over time. To make historical ecology globally relevant, more effort should be made to utilize studies across languages, borders and worldviews. We call for high standards regarding the use of social scientific methodologies. Lastly, we argue that fostering longer-term studies and assessing the real-life impact of policy recommendations emerging from historical ecology can help the discipline better contribute solutions to the challenges facing humanity in an uncertain future.

• Keywords
• Historical ecology, Interdisciplinarity, Long-term studies, Mixed methods approaches,
• MeSH
• Ecology * MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Uncertainty MeSH
• Research Design * MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Review MeSH

Despite many studies showing biodiversity responses to warming, the generality of such responses across taxonomic groups remains unclear. Very few studies have tested for evidence of bryophyte community responses to warming, even though bryophytes are major contributors to diversity and functioning in many ecosystems. Here, we report an empirical study comparing long-term change in bryophyte and vascular plant communities in two sites with contrasting long-term warming trends, using "legacy" botanical records as a baseline for comparison with contemporary resurveys. We hypothesized that ecological changes would be greater in sites with a stronger warming trend and that vascular plant communities, with narrower climatic niches, would be more sensitive than bryophyte communities to climate warming. For each taxonomic group in each site, we quantified the magnitude of changes in species' distributions along the elevation gradient, species richness, and community composition. We found contrasted temporal changes in bryophyte vs. vascular plant communities, which only partially supported the warming hypothesis. In the area with a stronger warming trend, we found a significant increase in local diversity and dissimilarity (β-diversity) for vascular plants, but not for bryophytes. Presence-absence data did not provide sufficient power to detect elevational shifts in species distributions. The patterns observed for bryophytes are in accordance with recent literature showing that local diversity can remain unchanged despite strong changes in composition. Regardless of whether one taxon is systematically more or less sensitive to environmental change than another, our results suggest that vascular plants cannot be used as a surrogate for bryophytes in terms of predicting the nature and magnitude of responses to warming. Thus, to assess overall biodiversity responses to global change, abundance data from different taxonomic groups and different community properties need to be synthesized.

• Keywords
• Community ecology, biodiversity, bryophyte, elevational gradient, forest, global change ecology, historical ecology, legacy data, resurvey, temporal dynamics, understory vegetation, vascular plant, warming,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

The term 'historical ecology' has been used with various meanings since the first half of the 20th century. Studies labelled as historical ecology have been produced in at least four academic disciplines: history, ecology, geography and anthropology. Although all those involved seem to agree that historical ecology concerns the historical interconnectedness of nature and human culture, this field of study has no unified methodology, specialized institutional background and common publication forums. Knowledge of the development of historical ecology is also limited. As a result, the current multitude of definitions of historical ecology is accompanied by divergent opinions as to where the origins of the field are to be sought. In this review, I follow the development of historical ecology from the 18th century to the present. In the first part, I briefly describe some early examples of historical ecological investigations, followed by a description of the various scientific strands in the 20th century that contributed to the formation of historical ecology. In the second part, I discuss the past five decades of historical ecological investigations in more detail, focusing mostly (but not exclusively) on works that their respective authors identified as historical ecology. I also examine the appearance and interconnectedness of the two main trends (ecological and anthropological) in historical ecological research. In the last part, I attempt to outline the future of historical ecology based on common features in existing research. It appears that at present historical ecology is at a crossroads. With rapidly growing interest in historical ecological research, it may move towards institutionalization or remain an umbrella term.

• Keywords
• anthropology, environmental history, historical ecology, human-nature interactions, interdisciplinarity,
• MeSH
• History, 18th Century MeSH
• History, 19th Century MeSH
• History, 20th Century MeSH
• History, 21st Century MeSH
• Ecology history   trends   MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Conservation of Natural Resources MeSH
• Geography MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• History, 18th Century MeSH
• History, 19th Century MeSH
• History, 20th Century MeSH
• History, 21st Century MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Historical Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
• Review MeSH

AIM: Resurveys of historical vegetation plots are increasingly used for the assessment of decadal changes in plant species diversity and composition. However, historical plots are usually relocated only approximately. This potentially inflates temporal changes and undermines results. LOCATION: Temperate deciduous forests in Central Europe. METHODS: To explore if robust conclusions can be drawn from resurvey studies despite location uncertainty, we compared temporal changes in species richness, frequency, composition and compositional heterogeneity between exactly and approximately relocated plots. We hypothesized that compositional changes should be lower and changes in species richness should be less variable on exactly relocated plots, because pseudo-turnover inflates temporal changes on approximately relocated plots. RESULTS: Temporal changes in species richness were not more variable and temporal changes in species composition and compositional heterogeneity were not higher on approximately relocated plots. Moreover, the frequency of individual species changed similarly on both plot types. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: The resurvey of historical vegetation plots is robust to uncertainty in original plot location and, when done properly, provides reliable evidence of decadal changes in plant communities. This provides important background for other resurvey studies and opens up the possibility for large-scale assessments of plant community change.

• Keywords
• pseudo-turnover, resampling, revisitation, semi-permanent plots, temperate forest, temporal vegetation change,
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH