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Paleoecological Research on Easter Island

Insights on Settlement, Climate Changes, Deforestation and Cultural Shifts

  • 1st Edition - August 6, 2020
  • Latest edition
  • Author: Valentí Rull
  • Language: English

Paleocological Research on Easter Island: Insights on Settlement, Climate Changes, Deforestation and Cultural Shifts examines the area’s climatic and ecological history, a topic n… Read more

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Description

Paleocological Research on Easter Island: Insights on Settlement, Climate Changes, Deforestation and Cultural Shifts examines the area’s climatic and ecological history, a topic not usually addressed in other literature. The book provides a thorough and synthetic account of all paleoecological works developed to date, including the latest discoveries. Finally, it attempts to match paleoecological evidence with the results of other disciplines creating a multidisciplinary framework. This approach to the field is ideal for researchers, university professors and graduate students in a varied range of disciplines and subdisciplines, including ecology, paleoecology, paleoclimatology, biogeography, sedimentology, and paleontology.

Users will find synthesized information on Easter Island from the last millennia that will help pave the way towards an integrated interdisciplinary vision of the island’s environmental-ecological-cultural system as a complex functional unit. Human and environmental deterministic views are avoided and the Easter Island enigmas are analyzed under a holistic perspective of continuous feedbacks and synergies among the different components of the system.

Key features

  • Provides the first synthesis of the available paleoecological knowledge on Easter Island
  • Furnishes clues on how to integrate paleoecological information with evidence from other disciplines
  • Addresses the complexity of the environmental-ecological-cultural system by analyzing the interactions (feedbacks and synergies) among its components

Readership

Synthesizes the available paleoecological knowledge of Easter Island over the last millennia to pave the way towards an integrated interdisciplinary vision of the island's environmental-ecological-cultural system as a complex functional unit

Table of contents

1. The island: Present conditions and paleoecological archives2. Before paleoecology: The enigmas of Easter Island3. The paleoecological pioneers and the rising of the ecocidal paradigm4. The transitional phase: Paleoecological quietness5. The revival: An opportunity for climate change6. Latest developments: Towards a holistic perspective7. Synopsis: From human determinism to socioecological complexity8. Future research: A plea for true interdisciplinarity

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: August 6, 2020
  • Language: English

About the author

VR

Valentí Rull

Valentí Rull is a biologist with a PhD in paleoecology (1990). He is a Tenured Scientist of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) at the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, Barcelona. He uses paleocological evidence to study the type and characteristics of biotic responses to environmental shifts, the natural and anthropogenic drivers of ecological change and the role of tectonics and environmental change on the origin of biodiversity. He also works on the contribution of paleoecology to biodiversity conservation. Dr. Rull has conducted his research on several temperate (Pyrenees, Azores Islands), tropical (Andes, Orinoco delta, Maracaibo basin, Gran Sabana, Pantepui) and subtropical (Easter Island) regions.
Affiliations and expertise
Senior Scientist, Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, Barcelona, Spain

View book on ScienceDirect

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