Jussi T Eronen

Jussi T Eronen
University of Helsinki | HY · Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme

Ph.D.

About

146
Publications
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Introduction
I lead the Past Present Sustainability Research Unit (PAES) at the University of Helsinki. PAES focuses on understanding the ecological and climate related interlinkages with human activities in the present day and in the long-term historic past. The research perspective is from natural sciences and is enriched by interdisciplinary Post-docs and collaborations outside the core discipline.
Additional affiliations
August 2015 - August 2023
BIOS Research Unit
Position
  • Senior Researcher
Description
  • www.bios.fi
June 2018 - June 2023
University of Helsinki
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
January 2014 - December 2015
Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre
Position
  • Marie Curie Fellow

Publications

Publications (146)
Article
Full-text available
Looking back to move forward The current impacts of humanity on nature are rapid and destructive, but species turnover and change have occurred throughout the history of life. Although there is much debate about the best approaches to take in conservation, ultimately, we need to permit or enhance the resilience of natural systems so that they can c...
Preprint
Full-text available
Recent renewed interest in using fossil data to understand how biotic interactions have shaped the evolution of life is challenging the widely held assumption that long-term climate changes are the primary drivers of biodiversity change. New approaches go beyond traditional richness and co-occurrence studies to explicitly model biotic interactions...
Article
The idea of decoupling “environmental bads” from “economic goods” has been proposed as a path towards sustainability by organizations such as the OECD and UN. Scientific consensus reports on environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions) and resource use give an indication of the kind of decoupling needed for ecological sustainability: glob...
Article
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Extinction leads to restructuring By most accounts, human activities are resulting in Earth's sixth major extinction event, and large-bodied mammals are among those at greatest risk. Loss of such vital ecosystem components can have substantial impacts on the structure and function of ecological systems, yet fully understanding these effects is chal...
Article
Decoupling environmental ‘bads’ from economic ‘goods’ is a key part of policies such as green growth and circular economy that see economic growth as desirable or necessary, and also see that current use of natural resources and its environmental impacts is unsustainable. We estimate what a ‘successful decoupling’ (2% annual GDP growth and a declin...
Article
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Few cultural practices beyond language are as widespread as string figure games. Their global distribution and potential to yield insights into cultural transmission and cognition have long been noted. Yet, it remains unknown how or when this behaviour originated and to what extent shared motifs are signals of repeated innovations or deep cultural...
Article
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This paper explores the role of measurement as a cognitive technology across human history, emphasizing the coexistence of formal and informal measurement systems. While standardized systems dominate contemporary culture and are well documented across large‐scale societies of the past, this manuscript highlights the less explored domain of informal...
Article
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Recent articles have demonstrated the knowledge and accuracy of oil corporations’ predictions made since the 1950s on the effects of their products on the global environment. But can the early relationship between oil corporations and national governments and lack of climate actions by both actors count as ecocide? If so, should remedial strategies...
Preprint
Integral to the fabric of human technology, knots have shaped survival strategies throughout history. As the ties that bind, their evolution and diversity have afforded human cultural change and expression. This study examines knotting traditions over time and space. We analyse a sample of 332 knots from 83 ethnographically or archaeologically docu...
Preprint
Few cultural practices beyond language are as widespread as string figure games. Their global distribution and potential to yield insights into cultural transmission and cognition have long been noted. Yet, it remains unknown how or when this behavior originated and to what extent shared motifs are signals of repeated innovations or deep cultural t...
Article
Full-text available
Phasing out fossil fuel use in order to limit global warming is an urgent global task. In a new climate law, Finland has set itself the target of being carbon neutral by 2035. Various scenarios and models have been presented on future energy needs and technological methods of production. However, there is a lack of research covering all fossil fuel...
Article
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The natural world is under unprecedented and accelerating pressure. Much work on understanding resilience to local and global environmental change has, so far, focussed on ecosystems. However, understanding a system’s behaviour requires knowledge of its component parts and their interactions. Here we call for increased efforts to understand ‘biolog...
Chapter
Full-text available
The NOW database of fossil mammals came to be through a confluence of several initiatives spanning multiple decades. The first public version of NOW database was released in 1996 and the first Advisory Board was established the year after. Originally, NOW stood for Neogene of the Old World but with the gradual expansion of the database the acronym...
Chapter
Full-text available
NOW ( New and Old Worlds ) is a global database of fossil mammal occurrences, currently containing around 68,000 locality-species entries. The database spans the last 66 million years, with its primary focus on the last 23 million years. Whereas the database contains records from all continents, the main focus and coverage of the database historica...
Chapter
Body size is an overarching trait of taxa, related to virtually all aspects of their life history and their relationships with the environment. In this chapter, we use the NOW data to summarize body size evolution of terrestrial mammals during the Neogene. We first present a new method for estimating body size of Proboscidea and show consistent tre...
Article
Full-text available
Measurement systems are important drivers of cultural and technological evolution. However, the evolution of measurement is still insufficiently understood. Many early standardized measurement systems evolved from body-based units of measure, such as the cubit and fathom, but researchers have rarely studied how or why body-based measurement has bee...
Article
The northern Mediterranean reptiles and amphibians show contrasting biogeographic histories during the Plio- Pleistocene. The influence of European climate changes on the evolution of the biogeographic ranges of taxa with a rich fossil record is determined herein combining different proxies to obtain well-supported palaeoclimatic scenarios. Ecolo...
Article
Before the COVID‐19 pandemic, infectious disease experts had postulated that the next pandemic is only a matter of time, and Finland, among other nations, had prepared for it. Yet the COVID‐19 pandemic crossed the customary political, functional, and temporal boundaries of crisis management to a surprising degree. This study analyses pandemic prepa...
Article
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Maestre et al. (Reports, 24 November 2022, p. 915) analyze livestock grazing in global drylands without adequately considering critical ecological, social, and economic variables. Their analysis ignores mobile pastoralism practices and land governance arrangements, critical for sustainable grazing in dry rangelands.
Article
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Ekologisten kriisien hillitsemiseksi yhteiskuntien on toteutettava nopea kestävyysmurros. Teollisuuden uudistaminen on tässä tehtävässä ratkaisevassa asemassa. Poliittisen talouden tutkimuksessa on kiinnitetty huomiota erityisesti valtioiden tärkeään rooliin kestävyysmurroksen ohjaamisessa. Ekologisen kriisin nopean hillinnän vuoksi kasvavaa kiinno...
Article
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Scenarios are a powerful way in which the scientific community can inform future policies for transformative change. Forthcoming scenario work holds promise for the Nature Futures Framework, which through the concept of relational values, seeks to recognize a multiplicity of value positions on human-environment relations, including those of Indigen...
Article
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This article reviews how simple heuristics – ‘rules of thumb’ – have guided human adaptation and the evolution of complex cultures. First, we argue that rules of thumb have been important catalysts for the evolution of human knowledge systems in the Holocene past. Through a variety of examples and case studies, we discuss how human cultures have us...
Article
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The wood- and peatland dominated Finnish Lapland is part of the northern boreal vegetation zone, except for patches of alpine tundra in the altitudinally highest lying areas close to the Norwegian and Swedish borders in the north, and the south-western corner of the area that belongs to the middle boreal vegetation zone (Elmhagen et al. 2015: Fig....
Article
Aim Body size evolution has long been hypothesized to have been driven by factors linked to climate change, but the specific mechanisms are difficult to disentangle due to the wide range of functional traits that covary with body size. In this study, we investigated the impact of regional habitat changes as a potential indirect effect of climate ch...
Preprint
Full-text available
Measurement systems are important drivers of cultural and technological evolution. However, the evolution of measurement is still insufficiently understood. Many early standardized measurement systems evolved from body-based units of measure, such as the cubit and fathom, but researchers have rarely studied the specifics of how or why body-based me...
Article
Full-text available
Since large-scale environmental disruptions have become chronic, policymakers need to consider the long-term consequences of urgent crisis decisions. We develop design principles for a decision platform addressing strategic environmental crisis management, by which we mean coordinated decisions during an environmental urgency that are sensitive to...
Article
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Biotic homogenization—increasing similarity of species composition among ecological communities—has been linked to anthropogenic processes operating over the last century. Fossil evidence, however, suggests that humans have had impacts on ecosystems for millennia. We quantify biotic homogenization of North American mammalian assemblages during the...
Article
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Tulevaisuus on huomisen tosiasia, porotaloudessakin. Siihen kannattaa varautua. Ihmiset myös muokkaavat tulevaisuutta toiminnallaan. Tulevalta odotetaan hyvinvointia, niin ettei uusien sukupolvien mahdollisuuksia kuitenkaan kuluteta loppuun.
Article
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As a part of its climate policy, Finnish government facilitated the creation of low-carbon roadmaps by sectors of industry. The roadmap process and the roadmaps were promoted as an international benchmark in COP26. They also form a part of the policy process towards the government's goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. We analyse the need and role of...
Technical Report
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Finland has a unique potential to continue industrial production without fossil fuels. However, in order to achieve this situation, more raw materials and energy are required than is currently thought and is in line with strategic planning. In order for all fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal and peat) to be replaced at various sites in Finland, a large a...
Article
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The magnitude and speed of change in complex human-environmental systems pose a systemic dilemma for societies. Human-induced environmental changes have pushed Earth's socio-ecological systems into an era of chronic, complex, and rapid disruptions, which call for quick intuitive decisions and effective implementation. Yet the complexity, interconne...
Article
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Suomen kaltaisia hyvinvointivaltioita pidetään lupaavina toimijoina kehityksessä kohti ekohyvinvointivaltiota, joiden tehtävänä on sopeuttaa taloudellinen ja sosiaalinen kehitys ekologisiin rajoihin. Tutkimuksessa on kuitenkin toistaiseksi kiinnitetty vain vähän huomiota teolliseen kestävyysmurrokseen ekohyvinvointivaltioiden ratkaisevana osa-aluee...
Chapter
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Pastoralism is a globally -important livelihood, with large social, environmental and economic importance across much of our planet. Yet, it is also a vulnerable practice with widespread crises, urgently calling for better systemic understanding. The current disciplinary compartmentalization of research not only hampers this but allows perpetuation...
Article
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In security and foreign policy discourse, environmental issues have been discussed increasingly as security threats that require immediate action. Yet, as the traditional security sector does not provide straightforward means to deal with climate change and other environmental issues, this has prompted concerns over undue securitisation and ill-pla...
Preprint
Full-text available
This article combines insights from ecological rationality and cultural evolution to illustrate how simple heuristics – colloquially, “rules of thumb” – have guided human behaviour and the evolution of complex cultures. Through a variety of examples and case studies, we discuss how human cultures have used rules of thumb in domains as diverse as fo...
Article
Full-text available
Historical records are incomplete templates for preparing for an uncertain future. The global utility of past ecological knowledge for present/future purposes is questioned as we move from Holocene to Anthropocene. To increase the adaptive capacity of today’s societies, generalizable strategies must be identified for coping with uncertainty over a...
Article
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Pastoralism is globally significant in social, environmental, and economic terms. However, it experiences crises rooted in misconceptions and poor interdisciplinary understanding, while being largely overlooked in international sustainability forums and agendas. Here, we propose a transdisciplinary research approach to understand pastoralist transi...
Article
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Climatic niches describe the climatic conditions in which species can persist. Shifts in climatic niches have been observed to coincide with major climatic change, suggesting that species adapt to new conditions. We test the relationship between rates of climatic niche evolution and paleo‐climatic conditions through time for 71 Old‐World flycatcher...
Article
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Katsauksessa tarkastellaan humanistisen ympäristötutkimuksen taustoja ja nykytilaa sekä suhteutetaan sitä yhteiskuntatieteelliseen ympäristötutkimukseen suomalaisessa ja kansainvälisessä tutkimuskeskustelussa. Koska suuntauksella ei ole vielä selkeää profiilia Suomessa, katsauksen pohjana on valikoima 2010-luvulla ilmestyneitä alan englanninkielisi...
Article
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The late Quaternary of North America was marked by prominent ecological changes, including the end‐Pleistocene megafaunal extinction, the spread of human settlements and the rise of agriculture. Here we examine the mechanistic reasons for temporal changes in mammal species association and body size during this time period. Building upon the co‐occu...
Preprint
Full-text available
Ecosystems are under unprecedented and accelerating pressures. Much work on understanding resilience to these pressures has, so far, focussed on the ecosystem. However, understanding a system’s behaviour also requires knowledge of its component parts and their interactions. Here we present a framework for understanding ‘biological resilience’, or t...
Article
The transition away from fossil fuel based infrastructure for heating and cooling has to happen on a scale and timetable with no historical precedent. As the systems are large and networked, path-dependencies constrain the transition that is further complicated by the diversity of stakeholders. Here we analyze the case of transitioning the district...
Article
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Ympäristövaikutusten irtikytkentää talouden koosta ja kasvusta on esitetty ratkaisuksi ekologisen kestämättömyyden ongelmaan. Irtikytkentä on myös “vihreän kasvun” ja kiertotalouden välttämätön taustaoletus. Kun arvioidaan, minkä kokoinen tehtävä onnistunut irtikytkentä Suomessa olisi ja miten nopeasti se pitäisi toteuttaa, huomataan sen olevan mah...
Article
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Despite an increasing recognition that environmental change may have implications for security, there only are few policies to address the issue. This article will look at environmental security policies in Finland and Sweden and propose ways to develop more effective measures. It relies on a three-level framework that aims to enable the identifica...
Article
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As the literature on environmental security has evolved and widened, knowledge of the full range of potential consequences of environmental change for different societies remains scattered. This article contributes to a more comprehensive approach to the implications of environmental change by providing a three-level framework of the security impac...
Article
Correspondence to https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0695-z
Conference Paper
Large mammals are at disproportionately high risk of extinction globally, and the ecological impacts of their loss will last beyond our lifetimes. Research shows that the end-Pleistocene mass extinction of large mammals left a significant ecological legacy, from shifting vegetation and fire regimes to changes in nutrient cycling and biogeochemistry...
Article
Aim We use cluster analysis to delimit climatically and functionally distinct mammalian faunal clusters. These entities form regional species pools and are relevant to community assembly processes. Similar clusters can be differentiated in the fossil record, offering the potential for use as palaeoenvironmental proxies. Location North America with...
Article
Full-text available
The environmental drivers of species distributions and abundances are at the core of ecological research. However, the effects of these drivers on human abundance are not well-known. Here, we report how net primary productivity, biodiversity, and pathogen stress affect human population density using global ethnographic hunter-gatherer data. Our res...
Article
Full-text available
Despite much interest in the ecology and origins of the extensive grassland ecosystems of the modern world, the biogeographic relationships of savannah palaeobiomes of Africa, India and mainland Eurasia have remained unclear. Here we assemble the most recent data from the Neogene mammal fossil record in order to map the biogeographic development of...
Article
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In the version of this Article originally published, each of the five panels in Fig. 5 incorrectly contained a black diagonal line across the plot. This has now been corrected.
Chapter
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Ecometrics is a trait-based approach to study ecosystem variability through time. An ecometric value is derived from describing the distribution of functional traits at the community level, which may arise by environmental filtering, extinction, or convergence. An ecometric relationship describes the correspondence between spatially explicit ecomet...
Article
The debate on the Anthropocene has become passionate during the past few years. This is partly because social scientists and humanists have adapted the concept creatively for their own research, as well as criticized the dominant role of natural sciences in defining the Anthropocene. We claim that to achieve a new level of transdisciplinarity it is...
Article
Animals with dietary specializations can be used to link climate to specific ecological drivers of endangerment. Only two mammals, the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in Asia and the greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus) in Madagascar, consume the nutritionally poor and mechanically challenging culm or trunk of woody bamboos [1-3]. Even though...
Article
Aim: (1) Survey and organize computational approaches to fossil data analysis into a methodological framework. (2) Highlight the kinds of research questions about evolutionary and environmental change that can be answered by applying computational algorithms to mammal fossil data to better understand past ecosystems and climates. Questions: What mo...
Article
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Because body size interacts with many fundamental biological properties of a species, body size evolution can be an essential component of the generation and maintenance of biodiversity. Here we investigate how body size evolution can be linked to the clade-specific diversification dynamics in different geographical regions. We analyse an extensive...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Patterns of change in ecomorphological traits have traditionally been studied using data from the fossil record. Recent advances in molecular phylogenetics created new opportunities for inferring ancestral character states and estimating the modes and rates of trait evolution from phylogenetic hypotheses of extant organisms. However, wi...
Article
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Significance Our study links diversity dynamics of fossil large mammals through time to primary productivity, i.e. net production of plant biomass. Spatial diversity patterns of extant terrestrial animals are often correlated with present-day primary productivity, but it is unclear whether the relationship holds throughout the geological past. Here...
Article
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Ungulate diets may vary following differences in vegetation, and their body size is affected by a complex set of ecological and physiological variables. Here we analyse Middle and Late Pleistocene British and German ungulate palaeocommunities to test whether there are significant correlations of diet and body size of ungulate species with vegetatio...
Article
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Ecological communities and their response to environmental gradients are increasingly being described by measures of trait composition at the community level - the trait-based approach. Whether ecological or non-ecological processes influence trait composition between communities has been debated. Understanding the processes that influence trait co...
Article
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Ouranopithecus turkae, from the late Miocene of Çorakyerler in Central Anatolia, is considered one of the last known occurrences of great ape in the eastern Mediterranean. The Çorakyerler fauna has previously been correlated with MN 11 to early MN 12 on the basis of biochronology, and its faunal composition has been found to contrast with those fro...
Article
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Understanding how ecological communities are organized and how they change through time is critical to predicting the effects of climate change. Recent work documenting the co-occurrence structure of modern communities found that most significant species pairs co-occur less frequently than would be expected by chance. However, little is known about...