This study brings together decades of research on the modern natural environment of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, reviews past research on paleoenvironmental change since the Late Pleistocene, and finally presents paleoecological records of changing forest composition and fire over the last 14,000 years. The focus of this study is on the authors’ studies of five pollen records from the Olympic Peninsula. Maps and other data graphics are used extensively. Paleoecology can effectively address some of these challenges we face in understanding the biotic response to climate change and other agents of change in ecosystems. First, species responses to climate change are mediated by changing disturbance regimes. Second, biotic hotspots today suggest a long-term maintenance of diversity in an area, and researchers approach the maintenance of diversity from a wide range and angles (CITE). Mountain regions may maintain biodiversity through significant climate change in ‘refugia’: locations where components of diversity retreat to and expand from during periods of unfavorable climate (Keppel et al., 2012). Paleoecological studies can describe the context for which biodiversity persisted through time climate refugia. Third, the paleoecological approach is especially suited for long-lived organisms. For example, a tree species that may typically reach reproductive sizes only after 50 years and remain fertile for 300 years, will experience only 30 to 200 generations since colonizing a location after Holocene warming about 11,000 years ago. Thus, by summarizing community change through multiple generations and natural disturbance events, paleoecological studies can examine the resilience of ecosystems to disturbances in the past, showing how many ecosystems recover quickly while others may not (Willis et al., 2010).

The Palliser Triangle extends from south-west Manitoba to south central Alberta, and is one of the most climatically sensitive regions in Canada. There is evidence & concern that climate change is likely to affect the Triangle. The geological record contains unique information on the impacts of a wide range of past climate changes. This paleoenvironmental record, and the context it provides for assessing the impacts of future climate change, is the focus of the Palliser Triangle Global Change Project. This bulletin contains 18 papers related to two major objectives of that Project: reconstruction of Holocene climatic and hydrological changes, and evaluation of the relationships between climate & landscape processes. The first paper is an overview of the Project and a broad synthesis of major results. The next nine papers are devoted to records of past climate & hydrological change documented in paleolimnological and hydrogeological studies. The rest of the papers focus on geomorphic processes in the Triangle and how these respond to climate forcing.

The latest volume in the LTER series, this book presents the results and finding of the Long-Term Ecological Research site in the Alaskan Arctic, discussing Arctic ecology from a variety of perspectives and disciplines.