Paleoclimatic Reconstruction Using Fossil Vertebrates

Using multipe regression analysis Manuel Fernandez and Pablo Palaez-Carnpomanes recently published a research paper in Global Ecology and Biogeography which uses fossil mammalian faunas to calculate climatic conditions of the early Pleistocene of Europe. A species by climate matrix is constructed. Each species and climate entry is represented with 0 (species does not live in the climatic zone) or 1/n where n is the number of climates that the species is found in. In this study 13 climatic variables were used. A multivariate analysis is then run on the matrix to correlate species occurence with climate. The authors concluded that rodents and other small mammals provide the most accurate estimation of past climatic conditions.