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This course is about how fossils and other types of historical data (isotopes, written records, historical narratives, archaeological evidence, etc.) are used to address contemporary conservation questions and concerns including habitat destruction, invasive species, resource overexploitation, and climate change. We investigate the ecological and evolutionary responses of species to changing environments in the geologic past and explore how this information is used to identify species at elevated risk of extinction today. We also consider how the “recent” dead (fossil records that span the past decades to centuries) are used to assess the impacts of human-driven environmental change.