Putting the dead to work

There's an interesting article in TREE (Trends in Ecology and Evolution) this month about the emerging science of conservation paleobiology.

There's a report at ScienceDaily: Putting the Dead to Work: Conservation Paleobiologists Dig Deep to Solve Today's Ecological, Evolutionary Questions, and the actual paper: Conservation paleobiology: putting the dead to work.

A new review of the research in this emerging field provides examples of how the fossil record can help assess environmental impacts, predict which species will be most vulnerable to environmental changes, and provide guidelines for restoration.

ScienceDaily is a good source for science news although it is almost always worth tracking down the original papers. They have got a lot better lately at including the full references at the end of their articles.