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  • Perspective
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Integrating historical sources for long-term ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation

Nature Reviews Biodiversity volume 1, pages 657–670 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Historical data sources are instrumental in biodiversity research because they provide historical baselines for species and ecosystems, and they reveal information about human–nature relationships and their sustainability (or lack thereof) over long timescales. Yet historical sources remain under-used in biodiversity and conservation research, in part owing to the perceived difficulty in finding, extracting and interpreting the data they contain. Their use also often relies on collaborations where overcoming disciplinary silos requires time-intensive processes of mutual acculturation. In this Perspective, we identify connections between historical ecology, biodiversity research and conservation by reviewing the main types of historical sources that contain biodiversity-relevant information and discussing how they can be extracted and integrated to draw inference about species, ecosystems and socio-ecological systems. Emerging tools and technologies are improving data mobilization efforts, but further action is needed to make best use of these types of data. We propose a strategy to improve the availability and use of historical data for biodiversity research and conservation.

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Fig. 1: Illustrations of eight types of historical sources.
Fig. 2: From historical sources to biodiversity data.
Fig. 3: Examples of historical data integration into ecology, biodiversity and global change research.

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Acknowledgements

The work presented here builds on the workshop SOURCES, organized by M.C. and L.M.N. as part of the SUMHAL project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the European Regional Development Fund (LIFEWATCH-2019-09-CSIC-4, POPE2014- 2020). L.M.N. also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement number 101106872 (project BaseShift). D.F. received funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) (Project number 461099895). C.M. acknowledges support from the DFG Research Training Group ConFoBi (GRK 2123/1 TPX). L.M. was supported by the Canada Research Chair programme (2020-00204). P.S. was supported by the long-term research development project no. RVO67985939. V.B.’s work is sponsored by the Spanish State Agency for Innovation’s Ramon y Cajal fellowship (RyC2021-032144-I), project title ‘Climate change in the past and present & Insect decline’. M.B.G. was supported by the BIOTREND project (TED2021-131513B-I00). N.M.-H. acknowledges support from the Independent Research Fund Denmark to her project ‘Anthropogenic impacts on Temporal Biodiversity Change’ (grant 10.46540/2064-00091B) and from her Villum Young Investigator project ‘Drivers of biOdiversity change through Resurveys in the Anthropocene’ funded by the VILLUM FOUNDATION (grant VIL53086). J.-C.S. considers this work a contribution to the Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), funded by the Danish National Research Foundation (grant DNRF173), and his VILLUM Investigator project ‘Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World’, funded by VILLUM FONDEN (grant 16549). D.S.V. received funding from the European Union, MSCA project RELOAD (Project 101059418 of call HORIZON-MSCA-2021-PF-01). T.C. and A.-S.T. received support from the French government under the France 2030 investment plan, as part of the Initiative d’Excellence d’Aix-Marseille Université - A*MIDEX (AMX-19-IET-012). The authors also thank N. Fernández and J. Chase for their participation in the SOURCES workshop and for their valuable input.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC), Seville, Spain

    Laetitia M. Navarro, Viktor Baranov, Francisco Blanco-Garrido, Duarte S. Viana & Miguel Clavero

  2. Historical-Ecological Research Lab, Indigenous Studies, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    Chelsey Geralda Armstrong

  3. Aix Marseille Univ, Toulon Univ., CNRS, IRD, MIO, ITEM, Marseille, France

    Thomas Changeux

  4. Department of Evolutionary and Integrative Ecology, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany

    Dagmar Frisch

  5. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC), Zaragoza, Spain

    Graciela Gil-Romera, J. Julio Camarero & María B. García

  6. Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

    Dominik Kaim

  7. Department of History and School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    Loren McClenachan

  8. Chair of Wildlife Ecology and Management, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Catalina Munteanu

  9. Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania

    Catalina Munteanu

  10. Department of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

    Péter Szabó

  11. Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Péter Szabó

  12. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Molly Grace

  13. Center for Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Toruń, Poland

    Adam Izdebski

  14. Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Naia Morueta-Holme & Rafael Schouten

  15. Real Jardín Botánico — CSIC, Madrid, Spain

    Francisco Pando

  16. Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Adam Spitzig

  17. Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Adam Spitzig

  18. Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere (ECONOVO), Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Jens-Christian Svenning

  19. TELEMMe UMR 7303, CNRS — Aix Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

    Anne-Sophie Tribot

Authors
  1. Laetitia M. Navarro
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Contributions

L.M.N. and M.C. conceptualized the article. All authors contributed substantially to discussions of the content. L.M.N. researched data for the article and wrote the first draft, with substantial text contributions from M.C., C.G.A., T.C., D.F., G.G.-R., D.K., L.M., C.M. and P.S. All authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript before submission and during the revision process.

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Correspondence to Laetitia M. Navarro.

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Nature Reviews Biodiversity thanks Gretchen Walters, who co-reviewed with Ariane Cosiaux, and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Related links

Neotoma Paleoecology Database: www.neotomadb.org

Old Weather project: https://www.oldweather.org/

Paisajes Centenarios project: https://paisajescentenarios.csic.es/

Zooniverse platform: https://www.zooniverse.org/

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Navarro, L.M., Armstrong, C.G., Changeux, T. et al. Integrating historical sources for long-term ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation. Nat. Rev. Biodivers. 1, 657–670 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44358-025-00084-3

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