UFZ-Report 03/2005: Ecological Resilience and Its Relevance Within
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Monitoring Global Changes in Biodiversity and Climate Essential
Ecological Informatics 55 (2020) 101033 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Informatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolinf Monitoring global changes in biodiversity and climate essential as ecological T crisis intensifies ⁎ Brian O'Connora, , Stephan Bojinskib,c, Claudia Rööslid, Michael E. Schaepmand a UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge CB3 0DL, UK b EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), EUMETSAT-Allee 1, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany c World Meteorological Organization, 7 bis Avenue de la Paix, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland (until 2018) d Remote Sensing Laboratories, Dept. of Geography, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH – 8057 Zurich, Switzerland ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Essential climate variables Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services have presented unequivocal evidence for human induced climate change Essential biodiversity variables and biodiversity decline. Transformative societal change is required in response. However, while the Global Observing systems Observing System for Climate has coordinated climate observations for these assessments, there has been no Nature's contributions to people equivalent actor for the biodiversity assessment. Here we argue that a central agency for coordinated biodi- versity observations can lead to an improved assessment process for biodiversity status and coupled climate - biodiversity observations in areas of mutual interest such as monitoring indicators of Nature's Contributions to People. A global biodiversity observation system has already begun to evolve through bottom up development of the Essential Biodiversity Variables. We propose recommendations on how to build on this progress through definition of user requirements, observation principles, creation of a community data basis and regional actions through existing networks. -
The End-Permian Crisis, Aftermath and Subsequent Recovery
Title The End-Permian Crisis, Aftermath and Subsequent Recovery Author(s) Wignall, Paul B. Edited by Hisatake Okada, Shunsuke F. Mawatari, Noriyuki Suzuki, Pitambar Gautam. ISBN: 978-4-9903990-0-9, 43- Citation 48 Issue Date 2008 Doc URL http://hdl.handle.net/2115/38434 Type proceedings Note International Symposium, "The Origin and Evolution of Natural Diversity". 1‒5 October 2007. Sapporo, Japan. File Information p43-48-origin08.pdf Instructions for use Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers : HUSCAP The End-Permian Crisis, Aftermath and Subsequent Recovery Paul B. Wignall* School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK ABSTRACT Improvements in biostratigraphic and radiometric dating, combined with palynological and palaeo- ecological studies of the same sections, have allowed the relative timing of ecosystem destruction during the end-Permian crisis to be determined in the past few years. The extinction is revealed to be neither synchronous nor instantaneous but instead reveals a protracted crisis. This is especially the case for terrestrial floral communities that show the onset of floral changes prior to the marine mass extinction, but a final extinction after the marine event making a total duration for the terres- trial extinctions of a few hundred thousand years. In the oceans the radiolarians provide the only detailed record of the fate of planktonic communities and these undergo a phase of stress and final extinction before the marine benthos. The initial phase of the aftermath is characterized by a glob- ally-distributed, low diversity biota and, in shallow, equatorial settings, by the precipitation of Pre- cambrian-like anachronistic carbonates. -
THE BIODIVERSITY LOSS CRISIS in SOUTHEAST ASIA a Literature Review on Current Research
Louise Nilsson Kultur och Samhälle Urbana Studier MV109C Miljövetenskap: Kandidatkurs VT 2019 Handledare: Jonas Lundgren & Johanna Nygren Spanne Picture 1: Cacao pods at plantation in Pulau Samosir, Sumatera Utara, Indonesia, Louise Nilsson, 2018. THE BIODIVERSITY LOSS CRISIS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA A literature review on current research Louise Nilsson Kultur och samhälle Urbana studier MV109C Miljövetenskap: Kandidatkurs VT 2019 Abstract This bachelor thesis focuses on the biodiversity loss problematics in Southeast Asia, since it is one of the most species rich places on Earth, coupled with the highest rate of loss of species. Four biodiversity hotspots encompasses Southeast Asia which implies areas of high endemism coupled with high rates habitat loss. This thesis aim to understand what current research in the field focuses on and what ways of protecting biodiversity in the area that exists. The main driver of biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia as well as in the rest of the world, are land-use alterations; forests and natural habitat being converted to monoculture plantations, as well as agricultural- and urban expansions. Through a systematic literature review of scientific material from 2010- 2019, the biodiversity research in Southeast Asia is reviewed. What the literature review concluded was that an array of environmental- as well as socioeconomic problems intensifies each other in the area, such as poverty and biodiversity loss. International cooperation to halt biodiversity loss and the global demand for products produced in the area which greatly damages ecosystems needs to be addressed urgently. Actions to halt the mass-extinction of species and their connected ecosystem services needs to be taken by providing means to organizations and to scientists that work in the area and could possibly be addressed by moving from anthropocentrism towards a biocentric nature view. -
Ecological Thresholds: the Key to Successful Environmental Management Or an Important Concept with No Practical Application?
Ecosystems (2006) 9: 1–13 DOI: 10.1007/s10021-003-0142-z MINI REVIEW Ecological Thresholds: The Key to Successful Environmental Management or an Important Concept with No Practical Application? Peter M. Groffman,1* Jill S. Baron,2 Tamara Blett,3 Arthur J. Gold,4 Iris Goodman,5 Lance H. Gunderson,6 Barbara M. Levinson,5 Margaret A. Palmer,7 Hans W. Paerl,8 Garry D. Peterson,9 N. LeRoy Poff,10 David W. Rejeski,11 James F. Reynolds,12 Monica G. Turner,13 Kathleen C. Weathers,1 and John Wiens14 1Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Box AB, Millbrook, New York 12545, USA; 2Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, US Geological Survey, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1499, USA; 3Air Resources Division, USDI-National Park Service, Academy Place, Room 450, P.O. Box 25287 Denver, Colorado 80225-0287, USA; 4Department of Natural Resources Science, 105 Coastal Institute in Kingston, University of Rhode Island, One Greenhouse Road, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, USA 5US Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460, USA; 6Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, 400 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA; 7University of Maryland, Plant Sciences Building 4112, College Park, Maryland 20742-4415, USA; 8Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 3431 Arendell Street, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557, USA; 9Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, 680 N. Park St., Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA; 10Department of -
Multiple Stable States and Regime Shifts - Environmental Science - Oxford Bibliographies 3/30/18, 10:15 AM
Multiple Stable States and Regime Shifts - Environmental Science - Oxford Bibliographies 3/30/18, 10:15 AM Multiple Stable States and Regime Shifts James Heffernan, Xiaoli Dong, Anna Braswell LAST MODIFIED: 28 MARCH 2018 DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199363445-0095 Introduction Why do ecological systems (populations, communities, and ecosystems) change suddenly in response to seemingly gradual environmental change, or fail to recover from large disturbances? Why do ecological systems in seemingly similar settings exhibit markedly different ecological structure and patterns of change over time? The theory of multiple stable states in ecological systems provides one potential explanation for such observations. In ecological systems with multiple stable states (or equilibria), two or more configurations of an ecosystem are self-maintaining under a given set of conditions because of feedbacks among biota or between biota and the physical and chemical environment. The resulting multiple different states may occur as different types or compositions of vegetation or animal communities; as different densities, biomass, and spatial arrangement; and as distinct abiotic environments created by the distinct ecological communities. Alternative states are maintained by the combined effects of positive (or amplifying) feedbacks and negative (or stabilizing feedbacks). While stabilizing feedbacks reinforce each state, positive feedbacks are what allow two or more states to be stable. Thresholds between states arise from the interaction of these positive and negative feedbacks, and define the basins of attraction of the alternative states. These feedbacks and thresholds may operate over whole ecosystems or give rise to self-organized spatial structure. The combined effect of these feedbacks is also what gives rise to ecological resilience, which is the capacity of ecological systems to absorb environmental perturbations while maintaining their basic structure and function. -
Unifying Research on Social–Ecological Resilience and Collapse Graeme S
TREE 2271 No. of Pages 19 Review Unifying Research on Social–Ecological Resilience and Collapse Graeme S. Cumming1,* and Garry D. Peterson2 Ecosystems influence human societies, leading people to manage ecosystems Trends for human benefit. Poor environmental management can lead to reduced As social–ecological systems enter a ecological resilience and social–ecological collapse. We review research on period of rapid global change, science resilience and collapse across different systems and propose a unifying social– must predict and explain ‘unthinkable’ – ecological framework based on (i) a clear definition of system identity; (ii) the social, ecological, and social ecologi- cal collapses. use of quantitative thresholds to define collapse; (iii) relating collapse pro- cesses to system structure; and (iv) explicit comparison of alternative hypoth- Existing theories of collapse are weakly fi integrated with resilience theory and eses and models of collapse. Analysis of 17 representative cases identi ed 14 ideas about vulnerability and mechanisms, in five classes, that explain social–ecological collapse. System sustainability. structure influences the kind of collapse a system may experience. Mechanistic Mechanisms of collapse are poorly theories of collapse that unite structure and process can make fundamental understood and often heavily con- contributions to solving global environmental problems. tested. Progress in understanding col- lapse requires greater clarity on system identity and alternative causes of Sustainability Science and Collapse collapse. Ecology and human use of ecosystems meet in sustainability science, which seeks to understand the structure and function of social–ecological systems and to build a sustainable Archaeological theories have focused and equitable future [1]. Sustainability science has been built on three main streams of on a limited range of reasons for sys- tem collapse. -
Environmental Limits Page 1
POST Report 370 January 2011 Living with Environmental Limits Page 1 Summary Human well-being is dependent upon assessment approaches. However, where renewable natural resources. Agricultural there is a risk of thresholds being systems, for example, depend upon plant breached and potentially irreversible productivity, soil, the water cycle, the impacts occurring, additional policy nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus nutrient safeguards to maintain natural resource cycles and a stable climate. Renewable systems within environmental limits are natural resources can be subject to required. biological and physical thresholds beyond which irreversible changes in benefit Managing ecosystems to maximise one provision may occur. These are difficult to particular benefit, such as food provision, define and many are likely to be identified can result in declines in other benefits. only once crossed. An environmental limit The evidence base is not yet sufficient to is usually interpreted as the point or range determine the most effective ways to of conditions beyond which there is a maintain benefit provision within significant risk of thresholds being environmental limits, but a range of policy exceeded and unacceptable changes responses are seeking to optimise multiple occurring.1 benefit provision, including: Biodiversity loss, climate change and a agri-environment schemes range of other pressures are affecting generic measures to enhance renewable natural resources. If biodiversity, which may increase governments do not effectively monitor the the capacity of natural resource use and degradation of natural resource systems to adapt to environmental systems in national account frameworks, change the probability of costs arising from the use of ecological processes to exploiting natural resources beyond increase overall natural system environmental limits is not taken into resilience to address problems account. -
Physico-Chemical Thresholds in the Distribution of Fish Species Among
Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst. 2017, 418, 41 Knowledge & © V. Roubeix et al., Published by EDP Sciences 2017 Management of Aquatic DOI: 10.1051/kmae/2017032 Ecosystems www.kmae-journal.org Journal fully supported by Onema RESEARCH PAPER Physico-chemical thresholds in the distribution of fish species among French lakes Vincent Roubeix1,*, Martin Daufresne1, Christine Argillier1, Julien Dublon1, Anthony Maire1,a, Delphine Nicolas1,b, Jean-Claude Raymond2,3 and Pierre-Alain Danis2 1 Irstea, UR RECOVER, Pôle AFB-Irstea hydroécologie plans d’eau, Centre d’Aix-en-Provence, 3275 route Cézanne, 13182 Aix-en-Provence, France 2 Agence française pour la biodiversité, Pôle AFB-Irstea hydroécologie plans d’eau, 13182 Aix-en-Provence, France 3 Agence française pour la biodiversité, Délégation Régionale Rhône-Alpes, Unité Spécialisée Milieux Lacustres, 74200 Thonon-les-Bains, France Abstract – The management of lakes requires the definition of physico-chemical thresholds to be used for ecosystem preservation or restoration. According to the European Water Framework Directive, the limits between physico-chemicalquality classes must be set consistently with biological quality elements. Onewayto do this consists in analyzing the response of aquatic communities to environmental gradients across monitoring sites and in identifying ecological community thresholds, i.e. zones in the gradients where the species turnover is the highest. In this study, fish data from 196 lakes in France were considered to derive ecological thresholds using the multivariate method of gradient forest. The analysis was performed on 25 species and 36 environmental parameters. The results revealed the highest importance of maximal water temperature in the distributionoffishspecies.Otherimportantparametersincludedgeographicalfactors,dissolvedorganiccarbon concentrationandwater transparency,whilenutrients appearedto have lowinfluence. -
Defining and Identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development
Defining and Identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development A Scoping Study Funded by Full Technical Report Project Team: Prof. Roy Haines-Young PD Dr. Marion Potschin Duncan Cheshire Centre for Environmental Management School of Geography, University of Nottingham Nottingham NG7 2RD [email protected] March 2006 Project Code NR0102 Defining and Identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development: Final Report Citation: HAINES-YOUNG, R.; POTSCHIN, M. and D. CHESHIRE (2006): Defining and identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development. A Scoping Study. Final Full Technical Report to Defra, 103 pp + appendix 77 pp, Project Code NR0102. Defining and Identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development: Final Technical Report Contents Page Acknowledgements ii Executive Summary iv Part I Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Context and Aim 1 Part II: Conceptual Frameworks 4 Chapter 2: Limits and Thresholds: Definitions 4 Chapter 3: Identifying Limits and Thresholds 12 Chapter 4: Values and the Problem of Limits and Thresholds 29 Part III: Exploring the Evidence Base 33 Chapter 5: Biodiversity 33 Chapter 6: Land Use and Landscape 42 Chapter 7: Recreation 52 Chapter 8: Marine Environment 57 Chapter 9: Water - supply and demand 62 Chapter 10: Climate Change 68 Chapter 11: Pollution Loads 75 Part IV: Conclusions and Recommendations 82 Chapter 12: Respecting Environmental Limits 82 References 94 Appendix A: Briefing and Position Papers by external experts 104 i Defining and Identifying Environmental Limits for Sustainable Development: Final Technical Report Acknowledgements Part III of this report “Exploring the Evidence Base” draws heavily upon a set of position papers from invited scientists, which are presented in their original form in the appendix of this full technical report. -
The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis
The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis: Descartes and the Modern Worldview By Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam The Philosophical Roots of the Ecological Crisis: Descartes and the Modern Worldview By Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0343-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0343-4 The time is coming when the struggle for dominion over the earth will be carried on. It will be carried on in the name of fundamental philosophical doctrines. —Friedrich Nietzsche We cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it in the first place. —Albert Einstein CONTENTS Preface ......................................................................................................... x Abbreviations ............................................................................................ xii Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xiii Introduction ................................................................................................ -
Resilience to Climate Change in Coastal Marine Ecosystems
MA05CH16-Leslie ARI 9 November 2012 14:39 Resilience to Climate Change in Coastal Marine Ecosystems 1,3 1,2, Joanna R. Bernhardt and Heather M. Leslie ∗ 1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and 2Center for Environmental Studies, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912; email: [email protected] 3Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Center, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Mar. Sci. 2013. 5:371–92 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on recovery, resistance, diversity, interactions, adaptation July 30, 2012 by 70.167.19.146 on 01/03/13. For personal use only. The Annual Review of Marine Science is online at Abstract marine.annualreviews.org Ecological resilience to climate change is a combination of resistance to in- This article’s doi: creasingly frequent and severe disturbances, capacity for recovery and self- 10.1146/annurev-marine-121211-172411 organization, and ability to adapt to new conditions. Here, we focus on Annu. Rev. Marine. Sci. 2013.5:371-392. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Copyright c 2013 by Annual Reviews. ⃝ three broad categories of ecological properties that underlie resilience: di- All rights reserved versity, connectivity, and adaptive capacity. Diversity increases the variety ∗Corresponding author. of responses to disturbance and the likelihood that species can compensate for one another. Connectivity among species, populations, and ecosystems enhances capacity for recovery by providing sources of propagules, nutri- ents, and biological legacies. Adaptive capacity includes a combination of phenotypic plasticity, species range shifts, and microevolution. We discuss empirical evidence for how these ecological and evolutionary mechanisms contribute to the resilience of coastal marine ecosystems following climate change–related disturbances, and how resource managers can apply this in- formation to sustain these systems and the ecosystem services they provide. -
What Role for Community Greening and Civic Ecology in Cities?
Chapter 7 From risk to resilience: what role for community greening and civic ecology in cities? Keith G. Tidball and Marianne E. Krasny Introduction One of the greatest risks following a natural disaster or conflict in cities is the ensuing social chaos or breakdown of order. Failed cities, such as parts of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and Baghdad following war in Iraq, can be viewed as socio-ecological systems that, as a result of disaster or conflict coupled with lack of resilience, have “collapsed into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes” (Resilience Alliance 2006). Communities lacking resilience are at high risk of shifting into a qualitatively different, often undesirable state when disaster strikes. Restoring a community to its previous state can be complex, expensive, and sometimes even impossible. Thus, developing tools, strategies, and policies to build resilience before disaster strikes is essential. The Resilience Alliance has led the way in developing a broadly interdisciplinary research agenda that integrates the ecological and social sciences , along with complex systems thinking to help understand the conditions that create resilience in socio-ecological systems. Through consideration of diverse forms of knowledge, participatory approaches, and adaptive management, in addition to systems thinking, the Resilience Alliance integrates multiple social learning ‘strands’ (Dyball et al. 2007). Although the resilience work has not focused on cities, its approach is consistent with a call by the Urban Security group at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory for “an approach (to studying urban ecosystems) that integrates physical processes, economic and social factors, and nonlinear feedback across a broad range of scales and disparate process phenomena” (Urban Security 1999).