Palaeoecology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Abundance or rarity of species in the fossil record, contrary to expectation of neutral theory, does not predict their longevity in ocean ecosystems.

Human activities affected forest cover during the mid-Holocene in northern China, but this influence was limited to the core agricultural region, according to a reconstruction of 12,000-years of forest cover changes based on pollen data.

The late Middle Pleistocene site of Bargny, Senegal, documents stone tool trends seen across contemporary sites in Africa but which, in West Africa, remain uniquely stable into the Holocene. Palaeoenvironmental data suggest that persistently stable environments in West Africa through the Late Pleistocene, including estuarine refugia, may have supported consistent behavioural responses.

Comparisons of steroid hormone concentrations in dentin samples from fossil mammoth tusks with those from a modern elephant tusk provide evidence of periodic increases in testosterone in the male mammoth characteristic of musth episodes.

The authors report a highly diverse Middle Ordovician Burgess Shale-type fauna from Wales (UK) that compares with the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang biotas in palaeoenvironment and preservational style.