An invitation to ecological economics

The emerging interdisciplinary field of ecological economics should be a recognized research priority. Only through a combination of sound ecology and good economics can we hope to manage our exploitation of the biosphere in a manner that is both sustainable and efficient. This article is an invitation to ecologists to use economic tools and to participate in ecological economic debate. To this end, we review basic ecological economic concepts and discuss how the field has arisen, what benefits it offers, and what challenges it must overcome.     

How can ecologists thrive during the global environmental crisis? Lessons from the ancient world

When striving to meet an immense challenge, how can we, as restoration ecologists, flourish? Given the ongoing environmental crisis, it is normal to experience ecological grief and discouragement. This article discusses how insights from the ancient philosophy of Stoicism can help environmental practitioners navigate these troubling times. To overcome ecological grief, ecologists can draw on three tenets from Stoic thought: distinguishing between what we can and cannot control; recognizing our contribution as part of a broader community of environmental managers; and focusing on the intent of our actions. We believe that these ideas can help ecologists shoulder the emotional burden of modern environmental practice and focus on working toward a diverse and resilient biosphere.     

Phylogenetic methodologies for studying specialization

Although the concept of specialization has played a central role in the development of ecological and evolutionary theory, important questions about specialization remain largely unanswered. We argue that the traditional division of specialization into evolutionary and ecological factors may be less useful than considering specialization as three components, which may not be mutually exclusive: ecological, behavioral, and functional. Many ecologists assume that these different aspects of specialization are necessarily correlated. However, this assumption has rarely been tested, but could be examined by using a phylogenetic approach. We argue that (1) ecologists should measure these different aspects of specialization within their respective organisms by placing measures of specialization on a standardized scale, and (2) should employ phylogenetic approaches for understanding how these components evolve. We argue that this approach will provide a more coordinated understanding of how specialization evolves.     

An overview of river health assessment: philosophies, practice, problems and prognosis

1. Philosophically, the term ‘river health’ is useful because it is readily interpreted by the general public and evokes societal concern about human impacts on rivers. The common goal of achieving healthy rivers unites ecologists and the general public because the value of the ecologists’ contributions is clear (and, hence, funded). The difficulty arises in the choice of relevant symptoms because there is a wide variety that can be measured with varying accuracy at a broad range of spatial scales. These indicators may respond to impacts at different time scales, and no single indicator is a ‘silver bullet’ that reveals river health unequivocally. 2. In practice, choice of indicator often shows personal bias, technical considerations, and constraints of knowledge. Selection of appropriate spatial and temporal scales for these measures is crucial. Although most measurements are spot samples (e.g. concentration, abundance, species richness), assessment of river health based on changes in ecological processes such as post-disturbance recovery rate or nutrient spiralling lengths may be more suitable in some cases. 3. Problems include validation of the indicator, its response time at a range of scales, and the reliability of its measurement. Assessment of river health should be accurate, timely (warning of deterioration instead of waiting until the patient is terminal), rapid (so that the response is swift), and inexpensive. The connectedness of running waters with their floodplains and catchments must be explicitly recognized. Hydrological and geomorphological modifications of rivers usually affect their health by severing or impairing the linkages, and the ‘cure’ may lie in addressing these causes. Often, we need landscape-level data for management because this is the scale where cumulative effects of impacts are evident. 4. The prognosis is uncertain. We need to explore further the use of integrative measures of river health, and focus on establishing a link between the measure and impaired ecological integrity. Ecosystem-level variables (e.g. estimates of production or respiration) show promise and recent technological advances make these more accessible. Data analytical approaches (e.g. multimetric vs. predictive models) need further debate but must not overlook the importance of high quality and relevant input data. Appropriate choice of indicators, rigorous sampling and analysis, and careful data interpretation must be matched with effective communication to policy-makers and the public. When this occurs, the concept of ‘river health’ becomes more than just a rhetorical tool.‘     

Stable Isotopes and Carbon Cycle Processes in Forests and Grasslands

Abstract: Scaling and partitioning are frequently two difficult challenges facing ecology today. With regard to ecosystem carbon balance studies, ecologists and atmospheric scientists are often interested in asking how fluxes of carbon dioxide scale across the landscape, region and continent. Yet at the same time, physiological ecologists and ecosystem ecologists are interested in dissecting the net ecosystem CO₂ exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere to achieve a better understanding of the balance between photosynthesis and respiration within a forest. In both of these multiple-scale ecological questions, stable isotope analyses of carbon dioxide can play a central role in influencing our understanding of the extent to which terrestrial ecosystems are carbon sinks. In this synthesis, we review the theory and present field evidence to address isotopic scaling of CO₂ fluxes. We first show that the ¹³C isotopic signal which ecosystems impart to the atmosphere does not remain constant over time at either temporal or spatial scales. The relative balances of different biological activities and plant responses to stress result in dynamic changes in the ¹³C isotopic exchange between the biosphere and atmosphere, with both seasonal and stand-age factors playing major roles influencing the ¹³C biosphere-atmosphere exchange. We then examine how stable isotopes are used to partition net ecosystem exchange fluxes in order to calculate shifts in the balance of photosynthesis and respiration. Lastly, we explore how fundamental differences in the ¹⁸O isotopic gas exchange of forest and grassland ecosystems can be used to further partition terrestrial fluxes.     

Epilogue: Toward a Transdisciplinary Science of Ecological and Cultural Landscape Restoration

To bridge the gaps between restoration as a science and as a practice, restoration ecology has to broaden its scope toward transdisciplinarity in close cooperation with landscape ecologists and other holistic environmentally oriented scientists, professionals, practitioners, and stakeholders. For restoration, the ongoing transdisciplinary scientific revolution has opened new insights to cope with the complex bio‐hydro‐ and human‐ecological network relations. The Total Human Ecosystem (THE), integrating humans with all other organisms and their total environment at the highest level of the global hierarchy, should become the unifying holistic paradigm for all synthetic “eco‐disciplines.” These should link ecological knowledge, wisdom, and ethics with their scientific and professional expertise from the natural and social sciences and the humanities. As the tangible matrix for all organisms, including humans, our industrial Total Human Landscape is the concrete spatial and functional system of the THE. It forms a closely interlaced network of solar energy–powered natural and seminatural biosphere landscapes and fossil energy–powered urban and agro‐industrial technosphere landscapes. The self‐organizing and self‐creative restoration capacities of biosphere landscapes are driven by mutually amplifying auto‐ and cross‐catalytic feedback loops, but the rapidly expanding technosphere landscapes are driven by destabilizing “run‐away” feedback loops. To prevent a global breakdown and to ensure the sustainable future for both humankind and nature, these positive feedbacks have to be counteracted by restraining, cultural feedbacks of environmental planning and management, conservation, and restoration. As the theme of this special issue alludes to, this template should become an integral part of an urgently needed sustainability revolution, to which the transdisciplinary landscape restoration could contribute its important share.     

What is the value of wild animal welfare for restoration ecology?

The restoration community continues to discuss what constitutes good environmental stewardship. One area of tension is the extent to which the well‐being of wild animals should inform restoration efforts. We discuss three ways that the perspective of wild animal welfare can augment restoration ecology: strengthening people's relationship with nature, reinforcing biotic integrity, and reducing mechanistic uncertainty. The animal welfare movement elevates sentient animals as stakeholders and explores how environmental context directly impacts the well‐being of individuals. Viewing wild animals through this lens may encourage people to think and act with empathy and altruism. Second, we incorporate animal welfare into the concept of biotic integrity for ecological and ethical reasons. Restoring ecosystem processes may enhance animal welfare, and vice versa. Alternatively, there may be a trade‐off between these factors, requiring local decision‐makers to prioritize between restoring ecosystem function and promoting individuals' well‐being. We conclude by discussing how welfare can impact population recovery, thereby adding insights about mechanisms underpinning restoration objectives. Ultimately, restoration ecologists and proponents of wild animal welfare could enjoy a productive union.     

Environmental proteomics, biodiversity statistics and food-web structure

Pioneering studies in environmental proteomics have revealed links between protein diversity and ecological function in simple ecological communities, such as microbial biofilms. In the near future, high-throughput proteomic methods will be applied to more complex ecological systems in which microbes and macrobes interact. Data structures in biodiversity and protein surveys have many similarities, so the statistical methods that ecologists use for analyzing biodiversity data should be adapted for use with quantitative surveys of protein diversity. However, increasing quantities of protein and bioinformatics data will not, by themselves, reveal the functional significance of proteins. Instead, ecologists should be measuring changes in the abundance of protein cohorts in response to replicated field manipulations, including nutrient enrichment and removal of top predators.     

N:P化学计量学在生态学研究中的应用

化学计量学很早就被应用于生态学研究中,但长期以来几乎被生态学家所忽视.近年来,由于认识到化学计量学研究可以把生态实体的各个层次在元素水平上统一起来,因此元素化学计量学成为近年来新兴的一个生态学研究领域.氮磷作为植物生长的必需矿质营养元素和生态系统常见的限制性元素,在植物体内存在功能上的联系,二者之间具有重要的相互作用.近年来由于人类活动的强烈影响,这两种元素的循环在速度和规模上都发生了前所未有的改变,导致一系列环境问题的出现,因此N:P化学计量学研究就显得极为重要.本文论述了N:P化学计量学在物种、群落、生态系统等各层次的应用现状,同时从分子生物学角度分析了应用N:P化学计量学的可行性,并指出了N:P化学计量学研究的应用前景和存在的缺陷.     

Phylogenetic niche conservatism, phylogenetic signal and the relationship between phylogenetic relatedness and ecological similarity among species

Ecologists are increasingly adopting an evolutionary perspective, and in recent years, the idea that closely related species are ecologically similar has become widespread. In this regard, phylogenetic signal must be distinguished from phylogenetic niche conservatism. Phylogenetic niche conservatism results when closely related species are more ecologically similar that would be expected based on their phylogenetic relationships; its occurrence suggests that some process is constraining divergence among closely related species. In contrast, phylogenetic signal refers to the situation in which ecological similarity between species is related to phylogenetic relatedness; this is the expected outcome of Brownian motion divergence and thus is necessary, but not sufficient, evidence for the existence of phylogenetic niche conservatism. Although many workers consider phylogenetic niche conservatism to be common, a review of case studies indicates that ecological and phylogenetic similarities often are not related. Consequently, ecologists should not assume that phylogenetic niche conservatism exists, but rather should empirically examine the extent to which it occurs.     

Physiological stress in ecology: lessons from biomedical research

Increasingly, levels of the 'stress hormones' cortisol and corticosterone are being used by ecologists as indicators of physiological stress in wild vertebrates. The amplitude of hormonal response is assumed to correlate with the overall health of an animal and, by extension, the health of the population. However, much of what is known about the physiology of stress has been elucidated by the biomedical research community. I summarize five physiological mechanisms that regulate hormone release during stress that should be useful to ecologists and conservationists. Incorporating these physiological mechanisms into the design and interpretation of ecological studies will make these increasingly popular studies of stress in ecological settings more rigorous.     

生态问题的经济社会根源与治理对策——以美国“黑风暴”事件为例

我国经济社会发展与生态环境的矛盾愈显突出,而对生态问题产生的经济社会根源认识不足导致无法提出针对性的治理方案,造成生态治理成果的反复,生态事件时有发生。为解决此类问题,以美国"黑风暴"事件为研究案例,深入探讨了生态问题产生的驱动要素,系统地总结了生态治理的有效途径。结果表明:生态问题是经济社会系统内部矛盾的外在表现形式;生态问题本质是人类不当的逐利行为导致经济社会发展不可持续的后果;政府调控手段滞后于经济社会和生态问题的发展是生态环境恶化的客观条件;生态治理技术无法满足经济社会发展对生态治理的需求为生态问题爆发和蔓延提供有利条件。因此,对于生态问题的有效治理,应以缓解经济社会系统矛盾为主线,通过法律、法规手段约束人的不当行为并遏制生态问题的扩大;应采取政策及法律手段保障利益相关者的生存和发展权益;要以政策的引导与支持促进治理技术的研发、应用和推广,推动经济转型,实现经济模式的高效化、绿色化。     

生物多样性与稳定性机制研究进展

随着全球生物多样性的迅速丧失,生物多样性与生态系统稳定性的关系已成为人类面临的重要科学问题。许多研究表明生物多样性与稳定性存在正相互关系,但其内在机制尚不能被很好地理解并且存在争议。对生物多样性与稳定性的研究历史做简短的回顾,然后根据时间稳定性的计算方法将时间稳定性分为平均值、方差之和以及协方差之和3个统计组成部分,在此基础上对现在常见的生物多样性-稳定性机制进行分类和详细介绍。并对现在生物多样性和稳定研究的争论进行总结。建议未来生物多样性稳定性关系的研究应该建立更加综合的理论,增加实验时间,应用整合分析(meta-analysis)对已发表实验结果进行综合分析,此外,应多关注非生物量/多度的属性,控制物种属性而不是仅仅控制物种的数量。     

How ecologists define drought,and why we should do better

Drought, widely studied as an important driver of ecosystem dynamics, is predicted to increase in frequency and severity globally. To study drought, ecologists must define or at least operationalize what constitutes a drought. How this is accomplished in practice is unclear, particularly given that climatologists have long struggled to agree on definitions of drought, beyond general variants of “an abnormal deficiency of water.” We conducted a literature review of ecological drought studies (564 papers) to assess how ecologists describe and study drought. We found that ecologists characterize drought in a wide variety of ways (reduced precipitation, low soil moisture, reduced streamflow, etc.), but relatively few publications (~32%) explicitly define what are, and are not, drought conditions. More troubling, a surprising number of papers (~30%) simply equated “dry conditions” with “drought” and provided little characterization of the drought conditions studied. For a subset of these, we calculated Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index values for the reported drought periods. We found that while almost 90% of the studies were conducted under conditions quantifiable as slightly to extremely drier than average, ~50% were within the range of normal climatic variability. We conclude that the current state of the ecological drought literature hinders synthesis and our ability to draw broad ecological inferences because drought is often declared but is not explicitly defined or well characterized. We suggest that future drought publications provide at least one of the following: (a) the climatic context of the drought period based on long‐term records; (b) standardized climatic index values; (c) published metrics from drought‐monitoring organizations; (d) a quantitative definition of what the authors consider to be drought conditions for their system. With more detailed and consistent quantification of drought conditions, comparisons among studies can be more rigorous, increasing our understanding of the ecological effects of drought.     

N：P化学计量学在生态学研究中的应用

化学计量学很早就被应用于生态学研究中,但长期以来几乎被生态学家所忽视。近年来,由于认识到化学计量学研究可以把生态实体的各个层次在元素水平上统一起来,因此元素化学计量学成为近年来新兴的一个生态学研究领域。氮磷作为植物生长的必需矿质营养元素和生态系统常见的限制性元素,在植物体内存在功能上的联系,二者之间具有重要的相互作用。近年来由于人类活动的强烈影响,这两种元素的循环在速度和规模上都发生了前所未有的改变,导致一系列环境问题的出现,因此N：P化学计量学研究就显得极为重要。本文论述了N：P化学计量学在物种、群落、生态系统等各层次的应用现状,同时从分子生物学角度分析了应用N：P化学计量学的可行性,并指出了N：P化学计量学研究的应用前景和存在的缺陷。     

Bird based Index of Biotic Integrity: Assessing the ecological condition of Atlantic Forest patches in human-modified landscape

Wooded biomes converted to human-modified landscapes (HML) are common throughout the tropics, yielding small and isolated forest patches surrounded by an agricultural matrix. Diverse anthropogenic interventions in HMLs influence patches in complex ways, altering natural dynamics. Assessing current condition or ecological integrity in these patches is a challenging task for ecologists. Taking the Brazilian Atlantic Forest as a case study, we used the conceptual framework of the Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI), a multimetric approach, to assess the ecological integrity of eight small forest patches in a highly disturbed HML with different configurations and histories. The IBI was developed using bird assemblages found in these patches, and its performance was compared with analytical approaches commonly used in environmental assessment, such as general richness and Shannon’s diversity index. As a first step, the IBI procedure identifies an existing gradient of human disturbance in the study region and checks which biotic characteristics (candidate metrics) vary systematically across the gradient. A metric is considered valid when its’ relationship with the gradient provides an ecological interpretation of the environment. Then, the final IBI is elaborated using each valid metric, obtaining a score for each site. Over one year of sampling, 168 bird species were observed, providing 74 different bird candidate metrics to be tested against the disturbance gradient. Seven of them were considered valid:richness of threatened species; richness of species that use both “forest and non-forest” habitats; abundance of endemics, abundance of small understory-midstory insectivores, abundance of exclusively forest species; abundance of non-forest species, and abundance of species that forage exclusively in the midstory stratum. Each metric provided complementary information about the patch’s ecological integrity. The resulting IBI showed a significant linear relationship with the gradient of human disturbance, while total species richness and Shannońs diversity index did not. Application of numerical approaches, such as total species richness and Shannon’s diversity, did not distinguish ecological traits among species. The IBI proved better for assessing and interpreting ecological and environmental condition of small patches in highly disturbed HML. The IBI framework, its multimetric character, and the ease with which it can be adapted to diverse situations, make it an effective approach for assessing environmental conditions in the Atlantic Forest region, and also for many other small forest patches in the tropics.     

河口三角洲湿地健康生态圈构建:理论与方法

河口三角洲湿地生态环境保护和区域开发的矛盾突出,对湿地生态圈健康和栖息地生态功能产生直接而强烈的影响.健康的河口三角洲湿地生态圈是由自然过程的连续性、生态系统的连通性、生境的异质性以及食物网的多样性等多种因素共同决定的.本文讨论了健康湿地生态圈构建的基础理论,综述了景观生态网络构建、水文连通性网络构建、食物网构建以及生境异质性栖息地营建的理论与方法.在区域和景观尺度上,以土地利用-生态系统完整性为主线,阐明了湿地破碎化对湿地生态功能的影响,特别强调景观完整性、水文连通性对湿地栖息地的影响;在生态系统和群落尺度上,以食物网-生态系统稳定性为主线,强调食物网多样性、生境异质性对湿地生物圈构建的支撑作用.基于景观完整性、水文连通性、生境异质性和食物网多样性构建健康湿地生态圈,可为湿地生态环境保护和建设提供科学依据和技术支撑.     

Ecoinformatics: supporting ecology as a data-intensive science

Ecology is evolving rapidly and increasingly changing into a more open, accountable, interdisciplinary, collaborative and data-intensive science. Discovering, integrating and analyzing massive amounts of heterogeneous data are central to ecology as researchers address complex questions at scales from the gene to the biosphere. Ecoinformatics offers tools and approaches for managing ecological data and transforming the data into information and knowledge. Here, we review the state-of-the-art and recent advances in ecoinformatics that can benefit ecologists and environmental scientists as they tackle increasingly challenging questions that require voluminous amounts of data across disciplines and scales of space and time. We also highlight the challenges and opportunities that remain.     

To Model or not to Model,That is no Longer the Question for Ecologists

Here, I argue that we should abandon the division between “field ecologists” and “modelers,” and embrace modeling and empirical research as two powerful and often complementary approaches in the toolbox of 21st century ecologists, to be deployed alone or in combination depending on the task at hand. As empirical research has the longer tradition in ecology, and modeling is the more recent addition to the methodological arsenal, I provide both practical and theoretical reasons for integrating modeling more deeply into ecosystem research. Empirical research has epistemological priority over modeling; however, that is, for models to realize their full potential, and for modelers to wield this power wisely, empirical research is of fundamental importance. Combining both methodological approaches or forming “super ties” with colleagues using different methods are promising pathways to creatively exploit the methodological possibilities resulting from increasing computing power. To improve the proficiency of the growing group of model users and ensure future innovation in model development, we need to increase the modeling literacy among ecology students. However, an improved training in modeling must not curtail education in basic ecological principles and field methods, as these skills form the foundation for building and applying models in ecology.