Paleoecology

Paleoecology
Presented By
Plenos, Emlynne Gaye P.
Quimson, Marc Marion
What is Paleoecology?
 Paleoecology or the ecology of the past uses
geological and biological evidences from fossil
deposits to investigate past occurrence,
distribution, and abundance of ecological (species,
populations, and communities) on a variety of time
scales.
 Paleoecology is the study of the environmental
relationships of organisms in the geological past.
Ecology vs. Paleoecology
Ecology is the study of interrelationships between
organisms and their environment.
Paleoecology is the same kind of study for fossil
species, to unravel the history of the earth and its
early inhabitants.
Fundamental Ecologic Principles
Ecosystem – The largest unit of study considered in
ecology.
Habitat – The environment in which an organism

lives.
Ecologic Niche – often defined as the organism's
position in the habitat, including its way of life and
role it plays in the ecosystem.
Most habitats are occupied by several species each
with its own ecologic niche.
Usually each species is represented by two or more
individuals which constitute a Population.
Population of two or more species occupiying a

habitat are commonly referred to as a Community.
Biomass – The total amount of living matter,
including stored food in the ecosystem at anytime
The Limiting Factors and Local
Habits
A principal goal in paleoecology is to reconstruct
accurately the environments in which preserved
animals lived. The physical, chemical and
biological properites of an environment that limits
the distribution of any given species are commonly
referred to as Limiting Factors.
One of the most important limiting factor is the
Food Supply.
Spatial Distribution of Populatons
The study of spatial and temporal patterns in the
abundance and distribution of organisms and of the
mechanisms that produce those patterns. Species
differ dramatically in their average abundance and
geographical distributions, and they display a
remarkable range of dynamical patterns of
abundance over time, including relative constancy,
cycles, irregular fluctuations, violent outbreaks,
and extinctions.
The aims of population ecology
The aims of population ecology are threefold:
(1) to elucidate general principles explaining these dynamic
patterns;
(2) to integrate these principles with mechanistic models and
evolutionary interpretations of individual life-history tactics,
physiology, and behavior as well as with theories of
community and ecosystem dynamics; and
(3) to apply these principles to the management and conservation
of natural populations
An Example of A Statistical Data of Population
Distribution in Biodiversity.
Life Habits
The most direct way to learn about the life habits of
an extinct fossil species is to observe them
preserved in the midst of some life activity.
Example: Catastrophic Burial
Homology
A less direct approach to understanding life habits is
to infer them by homology.
Homology - Homology is the existence of shared

ancestry between a pair of structures, or genes, in
different species
Functional Morphology
A major source of evidence for the reconstruction of
life habits when coupled with inferences about
habitat derived from sedimentologic evidence.
Morphology- concerned with the form and structure
of organisms
Intimate Species Associations
Many life habits of fossil organisms can be deducted
from preservation showing physical association
between species.
Mutualism - the way two organisms of different
species exist in a relationship in which each
individual benefits. Similar interactions within a
species are known as co-operation.
Evidence of Biologic Activity
Many organisms have left fossil evidence of their
presence and way of life in the form of tracks or
trails.
Trace fossils were produced by movements therefore
reveal much about the organism's behaviour
The Competitive Exclusion
Princliple
If two coexisting species require an environmental
resource that is available in limited supply, the
species that is the superior competitor for the
resource will greatly overshadow the other.
Given enough time, the inferior competitor may be
eliminated from the habitat.
Temperature and Biogeography
Biogeography – The study of distribution patterns of
entire species.
The primatry limiting factor in geographic
distribution is temperature, Temperature has only
minor effects on local distribution, except where
rapid and pronounce temperature fluctuations
occur (as in the intertidal zone). Its main effect is
on latitudinal species distribution.
Examples
The Woolly Mammoth- The habitat of the woolly
mammoth is known as "mammoth steppe" or
"tundra steppe". This environment stretched across
northern Asia, many parts of Europe, and the
northern part of North America during the last ice
age.
Temperature and Morphology
Temperature is an environmental parameter similar to
salinity in having little effect, for the most part, on
skeletal morphology. Still the average size of
individuals belonging to a single species tends to
be larger in the cold part of the species' geogrpahic
range than in the warm part.
Post Mortem Information Lost
Taphonomy
It is convenient for us to divide the history of an
organism from its birth to our discovery of its
fossilized remains into time intervals and give
different names to the study of various intervals.
Paleoecology concerns only the interval between the
organism's birth and death.

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What is paleoecology?

What are some fundamental ecological principles discussed?

Paleoecology

Habitat – The environment in which an organism

Population of two or more species occupiying a

Homology - Homology is the existence of shared

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