Restoring ecosystem health and integrity during a human population increase to ten billion

Human population growth and the improving condition of human populations in developing countries affect ecological health and integrity. Agricultural development co-opts increasing amounts of global primary production, degrading lands, and reducing species richness. The development of human populations and associated increasing demands for energy assures disposal for increasing amounts of waste, further damaging local ecosystems. Global climate change resulting from diffuse pollutants will affect even the most pristine ecosystems. The human challenge is to maintain ecological integrity and restore ecosystems in the face of accelerating development. The present level of ecosystem protection in not sufficient. Only integrated means of assessing recovery potential and acting to restore ecological productivity can assure continued availability of ecosystem services ranging from free production of food and fiber by plants and animals to final waste assimilation. Restoring ecosystems presumes that species sources are available and that adequate management is in place to monitor and manage recovery. Today, even in the most advanced societies, management is fragmented by non-integrative thinking and the failure to realize that the human scale of political decision-making and management is inappropriate to assure ecosystem restoration. Only by adopting radically new ideas integrating management and ecosystem science can ecological integrity be maintained.     

河流生态系统健康研究现状与展望——基于文献计量研究

河流生态系统健康是生态系统服务供给和流域可持续发展的基础,亟需从其内涵、影响、评价等方面进行系统归纳。运用文献计量梳理国内外文献,归纳了河流生态系统健康在河流自身、人类需求、管理目标3个方面的内涵;并从人类活动、土地利用、河流生境、水质、水量、气候变化等几个方面归纳了影响河流生态系统健康的主要因素和机理;明确了现有的河流生态系统健康评价方法,包括指示生物法、综合指标法、数学模型法等,总结了它们的优缺点和适用范围。最后,从河流生态系统健康的概念内涵、评价指标和水陆耦合等方面提出了存在的问题,建议进行流域整体的河流生态系统健康评价、跨区域的综合评价对比、多学科评价指标、河流廊道等几个方面的深入研究。     

生态系统健康与生物多样性*

生态系统健康学是一门研究人类活动、社会组织、自然系统及人类健康的整合性学科,主要探讨资源环境管理对策,以及生态系统健康与人类健康的关系。生态系统健康是人类健康的基础,是人类可持续发展的重要前提,维护生态系统健康,保护生物多样性,也就是维护人类生存的机会。人类健康依附于健康的生态系统功能和服务日益为人们所认识,关注和理解生物多样性、生态系统健康、人类健康之间的相互联系已成为全球可持续发展的必要条件。本文着重综述了生态系统健康的研究内容及全球环境变化背景下生物多样性的变化对生态系统健康的影响效应。     

Aquatic biodiversity in forests: a weak link in ecosystem services resilience

The diversity of aquatic ecosystems is being quickly reduced on many continents, warranting a closer examination of the consequences for ecological integrity and ecosystem services. Here we describe intermediate and final ecosystem services derived from aquatic biodiversity in forests. We include a summary of the factors framing the assembly of aquatic biodiversity in forests in natural systems and how they change with a variety of natural disturbances and human-derived stressors. We consider forested aquatic ecosystems as a multi-state portfolio, with diverse assemblages and life-history strategies occurring at local scales as a consequence of a mosaic of habitat conditions and past disturbances and stressors. Maintaining this multi-state portfolio of assemblages requires a broad perspective of ecosystem structure, various functions, services, and management implications relative to contemporary stressors. Because aquatic biodiversity provides multiple ecosystem services to forests, activities that compromise aquatic ecosystems and biodiversity could be an issue for maintaining forest ecosystem integrity. We illustrate these concepts with examples of aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services in forests of northwestern North America, also known as Northeast Pacific Rim. Encouraging management planning at broad as well as local spatial scales to recognize multi-state ecosystem management goals has promise for maintaining valuable ecosystem services. Ultimately, integration of information from socio-ecological ecosystems will be needed to maintain ecosystem services derived directly and indirectly from forest aquatic biota.     

The biodiversity‐dependent ecosystem service debt

Habitat destruction is driving biodiversity loss in remaining ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning and services often directly depend on biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity loss is likely creating an ecosystem service debt: a gradual loss of biodiversity‐dependent benefits that people obtain from remaining fragments of natural ecosystems. Here, we develop an approach for quantifying ecosystem service debts, and illustrate its use to estimate how one anthropogenic driver, habitat destruction, could indirectly diminish one ecosystem service, carbon storage, by creating an extinction debt. We estimate that c. 2–21 Pg C could be gradually emitted globally in remaining ecosystem fragments because of plant species loss caused by nearby habitat destruction. The wide range for this estimate reflects substantial uncertainties in how many plant species will be lost, how much species loss will impact ecosystem functioning and whether plant species loss will decrease soil carbon. Our exploratory analysis suggests that biodiversity‐dependent ecosystem service debts can be globally substantial, even when locally small, if they occur diffusely across vast areas of remaining ecosystems. There is substantial value in conserving not only the quantity (area), but also the quality (biodiversity) of natural ecosystems for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services.     

Agroecology: the key role of arbuscular mycorrhizas in ecosystem services

The beneficial effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi on plant performance and soil health are essential for the sustainable management of agricultural ecosystems. Nevertheless, since the ‘first green revolution’, less attention has been given to beneficial soil microorganisms in general and to AM fungi in particular. Human society benefits from a multitude of resources and processes from natural and managed ecosystems, to which AM make a crucial contribution. These resources and processes, which are called ecosystem services, include products like food and processes like nutrient transfer. Many people have been under the illusion that these ecosystem services are free, invulnerable and infinitely available; taken for granted as public benefits, they lack a formal market and are traditionally absent from society’s balance sheet. In 1997, a team of researchers from the USA, Argentina and the Netherlands put an average price tag of US $33 trillion a year on these fundamental ecosystem services. The present review highlights the key role that the AM symbiosis can play as an ecosystem service provider to guarantee plant productivity and quality in emerging systems of sustainable agriculture. The appropriate management of ecosystem services rendered by AM will impact on natural resource conservation and utilisation with an obvious net gain for human society.     

Sustainable Coastal Development: The Dual Mandate and a Recommendation for "Commerce Managed Areas"

Pitting the dynamicism and uncertainty inherent in undisturbed coastal ecosystems against the stability and predictability required of human‐dominated landscapes creates the paradox of the dual mandate. We describe a gradient of estuarine types ranging from systems that experience little human intrusion—conservation estuaries—to those that are dominated by people or extractive uses—production and urban‐industrial estuaries. Future approaches to managing these estuarine resources will require a division of the concept of marine protected areas into at least two subcategories: “conservation” managed areas (C_ConservationMAs) and “commerce” managed areas (C_CommerceMAs). The latter includes conditions where humans are not only a core feature of the landscape but also where extractive uses drive a large part of the local, regional, and even national economy. System reliability and predictability of ecosystem services are integral components of any management scheme in C_CommerceMAs. By recognizing this division managers can construct appropriate baselines that encompass the biodiversity and ecological integrity inherent in relatively undisturbed estuaries (or portions thereof), or the ecosystem health and system reliability that characterize urban‐industrial systems. The terms ecosystem restoration and ecosystem rehabilitation are also distinguished; the former term is used to describe practices that return ecosystems to optimum biological integrity, whereas the latter term is applied to the health of human‐dominated estuaries where the goal is to manage natural processes and functions. Our proposed approach does not mean that ecosystem quality is sacrificed in urban‐industrial or production systems; to the contrary, contaminant source control, suitable sediment and water quality, and the human endeavors to address them are just as important to sustaining commercial activity as they are to the well‐being of extant biota. So too, are the conservation and preservation of existing critical habitat (proximate reservoirs of biodiversity) in urban‐industrial systems, and rehabilitation of habitats that support species coadapted to the presence of humans.     

A framework for assessing ecological quality based on ecosystem services

Existing environmental legislation and ecological quality definitions such as ecosystem integrity tend to rely on measures that, either implicitly or explicitly, utilize naturalness as a key criterion. There are marked practical difficulties with employing the concept of naturalness in human dominated landscapes, and the management of such ecosystems is inevitably going to need to take account of human needs and expectations. We propose that ecological quality could be assessed by its ecosystem service profile (ESP): the overlap between societal expectations for, and the sustainable provision of, suites of ecosystem services. The status for each individual ecosystem service is defined by the ratio of its sustained provision to the expected level of provision for the service. The ESP measure is a multi-criterion, context-specific assessment of the match between expectation for and sustainable supply of ecosystem services. It provides a flexible measure of quality which takes into account that the “ideal” ecosystem state is largely dependent on the specific management context. The implementation of ESPs challenges us to develop indicators for the sustained provision of individual ecosystem services, much better understanding of the trade-offs among services, and practical tools for gauging societal demands. All of which are challenging problems. The proposed framework can help to strategically address research needs and monitoring requirements and foster a more integrative approach to ecosystem assessment and management in the future. The need for this follows from the fact that the undisturbed reference state represents only one aspect of an ecosystem and that ecological quality in human dominated landscapes will, ultimately, be determined by the value society places on the sustainable provision of multiple ecosystem services.     

水源涵养与水文调节:和而不同的陆地生态系统水文服务

水与生态系统的关系是重要的科学问题,并且受到社会广泛关注。水源涵养和水文调节都是陆地生态系统所能提供的水文服务,并从生态水文和水资源角度把生态系统的健康和完整性与人类社会的持续发展紧密联系起来,从而也要求动态和综合的视角加以深入研究。基于生态水文过程原理,对水源涵养和水文调节的概念进行了辨析,认为前者是后者的有机组成部分,相对具体、应用中务求精确明晰;后者则更具包容性、客观性和广泛适用性。文章进一步简要分析了当前国内外生态系统水源涵养和水文调节服务的主导评估方法,结果表明,水源涵养的评估以储水量法为主,而水文调节则以基于降水和蒸散的水量平衡法及综合模型法(如SWAT)为主。从生态系统服务相互作用的角度考量,实际上水源涵养和水文调节及其相关的其它服务类型(如固碳、土壤保持、生物生产、淡水供给等)存在着复杂的动态权衡或协同关系,在科学研究和生态系统管理实践中必须统筹考虑,以确保对科学问题的准确把握和促进"水-生态-社会系统"的高效、可持续发展。为此,必须加强对生态水文过程的长期观测和实验研究,并且关注空间异质性及尺度效应、时间动态性和利益相关者需求的多维性。     

Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies

Agricultural ecosystems provide humans with food, forage, bioenergy and pharmaceuticals and are essential to human wellbeing. These systems rely on ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, including pollination, biological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services. Preliminary assessments indicate that the value of these ecosystem services to agriculture is enormous and often underappreciated. Agroecosystems also produce a variety of ecosystem services, such as regulation of soil and water quality, carbon sequestration, support for biodiversity and cultural services. Depending on management practices, agriculture can also be the source of numerous disservices, including loss of wildlife habitat, nutrient runoff, sedimentation of waterways, greenhouse gas emissions, and pesticide poisoning of humans and non-target species. The tradeoffs that may occur between provisioning services and other ecosystem services and disservices should be evaluated in terms of spatial scale, temporal scale and reversibility. As more effective methods for valuing ecosystem services become available, the potential for ‘win–win’ scenarios increases. Under all scenarios, appropriate agricultural management practices are critical to realizing the benefits of ecosystem services and reducing disservices from agricultural activities.     

Evaluating Ecosystem Services Provided by Non-Native Species: An Experimental Test in California Grasslands

The concept of ecosystem services – the benefits that nature provides to human''s society – has gained increasing attention over the past decade. Increasing global abiotic and biotic change, including species invasions, is threatening the secure delivery of these ecosystem services. Efficient evaluation methods of ecosystem services are urgently needed to improve our ability to determine management strategies and restoration goals in face of these new emerging ecosystems. Considering a range of multiple ecosystem functions may be a useful way to determine such strategies. We tested this framework experimentally in California grasslands, where large shifts in species composition have occurred since the late 1700''s. We compared a suite of ecosystem functions within one historic native and two non-native species assemblages under different grazing intensities to address how different species assemblages vary in provisioning, regulatory and supporting ecosystem services. Forage production was reduced in one non-native assemblage (medusahead). Cultural ecosystem services, such as native species diversity, were inherently lower in both non-native assemblages, whereas most other services were maintained across grazing intensities. All systems provided similar ecosystem services under the highest grazing intensity treatment, which simulated unsustainable grazing intensity. We suggest that applying a more comprehensive ecosystem framework that considers multiple ecosystem services to evaluate new emerging ecosystems is a valuable tool to determine management goals and how to intervene in a changing ecosystem.     

Determining desirable levels of ecosystem services per capita

Ecosystem services are the numerous, essential processes that natural ecosystems provide free to human societies. Examples include the maintenance of breathable air; the movement, storage, and purification of water; the breakdown of wastes; and the provision of food, building materials, and medicines. However, the exponential increases in human population and concomitant environmental destruction make it likely that the level of ecosystem services available per capita will decline. There are three possible scenarios. First, if present practices continue, ecosystem services per capita will surely decline. Second, if a no-net-loss policy is implemented for habitats and species, ecosystem services per capita will still decline due to increases in human population, but the declines will be less precipitous. Third, if habitat is restored (including concomitant ecosystem services) at a rate exceeding that of destruction, then, perhaps the current level of ecosystem services per capita can be maintained, or even expanded to provide increased levels of ecosystem services per capita to more of the world's people.     

生态功益:自然生态过程对人类的贡献

大自然是维系人类社会生存和维持文明发展的生命之舟,为人们的物质和精神生活提供必不可少的资源和环境条件及生态服务。生态功益是这些由自然生物过程产生和维持的环境资源方面的条件和服务的统称。本文从自然生产,维持生物多样性,调节气象过程、气候变化和地球化学物质循环,调节水循环和减缓旱涝灾害,改善与保持土壤,净化环境,为作物与自然植物传粉播种,控制病虫害,维护改善人的身心健康和激发人的精神文化追求等方面探讨和介绍生态功益及生态功益的经济评价。迅猛的人口增长、社会变化和技术发展已使承载人类社会的生命之舟受到严重破坏和巨大威胁。减少这些破坏和威胁是整个社会,特别是生态学エ作者面临的重大挑战.     

滨海湿地生态系统服务及其价值评估研究进展

滨海湿地是介于海陆之间的过渡地带,具有丰富的生物多样性和很高的生产力,能为人类提供诸多生态系统服务,但它又是对人类活动极为敏感的生态脆弱区。沿海经济的发展使湿地资源的有限性与人类需求的无限性之间的矛盾日益突出,导致湿地多样性丧失、服务功能退化等。在阐述滨海湿地特征及其服务产生机理的基础上,介绍了运用经济学方法对生态系统服务进行评价的进展,分析了各方法的优缺点及应用情况,最后对滨海湿地生态系统服务价值评估中存在的问题进行了总结归纳,评估所面临的困难一方面来自生态系统本身的复杂性;另一方面来自经济学方法的局限性。因此今后的研究应从生态系统服务的形成机制入手,注重生态学及经济学理论的结合,改善评估方法,提高评估结果的有效性和可信度,为湿地资源管理及生态补偿机制制定提供有力支持。     

Natural ecosystem design and control imperatives for sustainable ecosystem services

Sustainability of ecosystem services to humanity will depend on knowledge of how ecosystems work in their natural states, which can then be carried over to managed states. The objective of this paper is to describe four properties of ecosystems taken as natural conditions to be maintained under exploitation. Three of these are design properties: near-steady-state or extremal dynamics, dominance of indirect effects, and positive utility in network organization. One is a regulatory property: distributed multivariable control. The methodology of the paper is mathematical modeling. The design properties are drawn from the inherent formalism in models. The control property is demonstrated by manipulating model parameters to achieve a management goal. The results show that: (1) natural ecosystems operate near, but not at, steady states or extrema, and ecosystems exploited for human purposes should be similarly maintained (near-steady-state imperative); (2) indirect effects are dominant in natural ecosystem networks, and should be taken into account in managing ecosystems for human benefits (nonlocal imperative); (3) natural ecosystems enhance positive relationships among their constituents, and ecosystems maintained for human services should be managed to maximize their expression of mutualistic and synergistic network properties (nonzero imperative); and (4) natural ecosystems are regulated by checks and balances distributed across many control variables in interactive networks, so that obtaining human services from ecosystems should similarly be through coordinated use of many, not few, control variables (multifactorial control imperative). The conclusion from these results is that ecosystems under natural conditions evidence organizational properties evolved over evolutionary time, and management for sustainable extraction of ecosystem services should seek to preserve and emulate these properties in the new exploited states.     

生态系统服务制图研究进展

生态系统服务是生态学研究的前沿方向之一,生态系统服务制图是将生态系统服务的评估结果纳入到生态环境保护规划与管理决策制定与实施过程中的重要组成部分。生态系统服务制图是根据决策需求,选择合适的制图评价方法,对特定时空尺度上生态系统服务的空间分布以及在各种自然-社会因素共同影响下生态系统服务的情景变化进行量化描述的过程。它最终为决策参与者提供研究区域生态系统服务时空变化特征具体的、可视的量化描述,辅助决策者权衡利弊,最终制定出符合区域生态环境与人类社会共同可持续发展的最优决策。综述了生态系统服务制图的内涵及其在辅助决策过程中的重要作用;介绍了生态系统服务的重点研究内容(生态系统服务的提供、需求及权衡协同关系制图)及研究方法;并对目前研究中所存在的问题进行了深入的探讨,归纳了生态系统服务的制图评价流程及未来重点的研究方向。     

Ecosystem services and management options as blanket indicators of ecosystem health

A pragmatic and integrative approach to evaluation of the environment combines ecosystem sciences, health sciences, and social sciences. Each has a crucial role to play: the ecosystem sciences provide information on the complex dynamics of ecosystems as they are influenced by stress and disturbance; the health sciences provide a methodology for systematic diagnosis of pathology, taxonomy of ills, and models for preventive as well as rehabilitative modes; the social sciences bring to the fore the importance of human values which are part and parcel of any health evaluation. The complexity of stress-response systems precludes anything approximating a complete understanding of mechanisms underpinning ecosystem transformations. However, the loss of ecosystem services and management options appears to be a general phenomenon that permits an overall evaluation of ecosystem health in both aquatic and terrestrial systems. Such blanket indicators take into account both the impairment of ecosystem function and societal values. This is illustrated by the history of ecosystem transformation in the Laurentian Lower Great Lakes and in the overharvested forest ecosystems of Eastern Canada. In both cases, cultural stress resulted in losses in highly valued ecosystem services and management options. These losses have been partially compensated for by new technologies that have permitted commercial use of the remaining lower quality resources. This process itself, however, may be pathological, reinforcing a degradation sequence rather than serving to restore ecosystem health.     

国家公园生态系统完整性评价研究进展

建立国家公园可促进生态环境和生物多样性的保护, 而国家公园生态系统完整性评价对于维持生态系统平衡、生态系统健康、生物多样性以及典型生态系统的完整性具有重要意义。本文介绍了生物完整性指数评价体系(Index of Biotic Integrity, IBI)、三级法评估框架(Three Level Approach, TLA)和生态系统完整性评估框架(Ecosystem Integrity Assessment Framework, EIAF)三种国家公园生态系统完整性评价方法, 其中生物完整性指数评价体系基于高强度的野外调查和室内实验分析, 虽然花费大、耗时长以及生物鉴定专业性要求较高, 但评价结果准确可靠; 三级法评估框架分为三个级别, 即远程型评价(Remote Assessment)、快速型评价(Rapid Assessment)和密集型评价(Intensive Assessment), 在评价独立且较为复杂的生态系统完整性时具有极大的灵活性; 生态系统完整性评估框架吸取了生物完整性指数评价体系和三级法评估框架的优点, 扩充了评价体系的指标, 优化了生态系统完整性评价计分统计方法, 是目前最为成熟的评价方法之一。同时,本文也探讨了目前国家公园生态系统完整性评价研究中存在的一些问题,如评价指标不全、评价形式单一和评价方法主观性较强等。作者指出, 国家公园生态系统完整性的研究需要注重自然-经济-社会的结合与统一, 加强社会经济可持续发展与人类健康等方面的研究, 挖掘外来入侵物种与生态环境之间的关系, 继续寻找能够反映生态系统完整性状态和变化趋势的新的指示物种, 进而制定统一标准的评价方法体系。     

生态系统综合评价的内容与方法

生态系统综合评价是系统分析生态系统的生产及服务能力,对生态系统进行健康诊断,做出综合的生态分析和经济分析,评价其当前状态,并预测生态系统今后的发展趋势,为生态系统管理提供科学依据。从总体上讲,综合评价更强调生态系统一系列产品与服务功能之间的权衡,具有很强的实践意义。许多学者对不同的生态系统服务功能进行了经济价值评估,但缺乏对生态系统的产品、服务、健康与管理之间关系的进一步探讨。对生态系统服务功能评价、健康评价的生态管理与预测进行了系统论述,目的是提出生态系统综合评价的框架,指导生态系统评价行动及生态系统管理。     

生态系统健康研究进展

健康的生态系统一般被视为环境管理的终极目标,进行生态系统健康研究对探索区域与生态系统可持续发展具有重要意义。随着国际生态与健康学会(International Association for Ecology and Health)的解体,生态系统健康研究视角出现转型。系统梳理了近年来国际上有关生态系统健康概念及其评估方法、指标的新进展,通过文献统计和重要文献引用揭示了国际生态系统健康研究的发展历程,提出了从生态系统健康到生态健康再到生态文化健康的三大核心框架发展阶段,生态系统健康的研究对象和范围正在不断扩充。资源环境研究领域是国内研究者应用生态系统健康概念与方法的优势领域,在区域尺度上评价生态系统的健康更贴近资源环境和社会文化交互作用的复合表征理念。因此,我国生态系统健康研究的趋向不仅应包括在生态系统尺度上研究的继续深化,也应包含对生态文化健康概念的完善与应用,并发挥地理-生态视角的区域集成研究优势,从而有效指导区域生态与环境政策制定与实施。