Fossils aren’t only useful for learning about the past. They can also suggest how plants and animals might respond to future events — most pressingly, climate change. For example, Jenny McGuire, assistant professor and conservation paleobiologist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and her colleagues studied fossilized pollen grains to see how 16 important plant taxa from North America responded to climate change over the past 18,000 years. Did the plants shift their ranges to follow their preferred climate, the researchers wondered, or did they stay put and make the best of things as the climate changed around them? Twelve of the 16 taxa changed their geographic distribution to maintain similar climate niches, the researchers found — even in periods when the climate was changing rapidly. (This story was first published in Knowable Magazine.)