Teaching and learning in ecology: a horizon scan of emerging challenges and solutions

We currently face significant, anthropogenic, global environmental challenges and the role of ecologists in mitigating these challenges is arguably more important than ever. Consequently there is an urgent need to recruit and train future generations of ecologists, both those whose main area is ecology, but also those involved in the geological, biological and environmental sciences. Here we present the results of a horizon scanning exercise that identified current and future challenges facing the teaching of ecology, through surveys of teachers, students and employers of ecologists. Key challenges identified were grouped in terms of the perspectives of three groups: students, for example the increasing disconnect between people and nature; teachers, for example the challenges associated with teaching the quantitative skills that are inherent to the study of ecology; and society, for example poor societal perceptions of the field of ecology. In addition to the challenges identified, we propose a number of solutions developed at a workshop by a team of ecology teaching experts, with supporting evidence of their potential to address many of the problems raised. These proposed solutions include developing living labs, teaching students to be ecological entrepreneurs and influencers, embedding skills-based learning and coding in the curriculum, an increased role for learned societies in teaching and learning, and using new technology to enhance fieldwork studies including virtual reality, artificial intelligence and real-time spoken language translation. Our findings are focused towards UK higher education, but they should be informative for students and teachers of a wide range of educational levels, policy makers and professional ecologists worldwide.     

UAVs as remote sensing platforms in plant ecology: review of applications and challenges

无人机遥感在植物生态学中的应用与挑战 无人机为获取高时空分辨率的遥感数据提供了经济灵活的工具,为植物生态学家开展从个体到区域尺度的生态学研究提供了新的机遇和手段。但作为一种新兴的技术手段,当前无人机遥感在植物生态学中的应用仍充满了挑战,植物生态学的科研需求与无人机遥感的生态应用需要更为深入的融合。本文综述了无人机遥感技术在植物生态学中的应用,展望了无人机在植物生态学研究中的应用前景。在所综述的400篇文献中,59%的文章发表于非植物生态学领域的遥感类期刊,遥感学者与生态学者的关注点存在较大差异。当前的研究集中在无人机遥感的技术层面,如数据处理和遥感反演方法等,对生态学问题本身的关注较少。综述的文献中,61%的研究案例集中在群落尺度,可见光(RGB)相机和多光谱相机是最常用的传感器类型(75%)。无人机遥感数据中蕴藏着诸多待挖掘的、有重要意义的生态参数,这些参数有助于我们识别林窗的几何特征,构建林冠的化学组合,更好地了解林冠表面的不规则性和群落的异质性。无人机遥感技术在植物生态学研究中的深入应用,需要集植物生态学家和遥感专家之合 力共同推进。     

Towards a behavioral ecology of ecological landscapes

Recent developments in landscape-level ecological modeling rest upon poorly understood behavioral phenomena. Surprisingly, these phenomena include animal movement and habitat selection, two areas with a long history of study in behavioral ecology. A major problem in applying traditional behavioral ecology to landscape-level ecological problems is that ecologists and behaviorists work at very different spatial scales. Thus a behavioral ecology of ecological landscapes would strive to overcome this inopportune differential in spatial scales. Such a landscape-conscious behavioral undertaking would not only establish more firmly the link between behavior and ecological systems, but also catalyze the study of basic biological phenomena of Interest to behaviorists and ecologists alike.     

自豪 自信 自省——寄语中国生态学

生态学已经不仅是当今发展最快的科学领域 ,同时还逐步成为普通公民行为和政府决策的重要科学基础。我国自然环境复杂 ,几千年的文化 ,蕴涵着深邃的生态学思想。生态系统类型十分丰富为我国生态学者提供了独有的科研舞台。近年来生态学发展很快 ,有的领域正在走向世界生态学研究的前沿。我国政府对生态建设愈来愈重视 ,并提出全面、协调、可持续的科学发展观 ,它不仅为我国今后社会发展提出了方向 ,同时也必将为生态学的发展起到重大的指导和推动作用。我国生态学界应积极面向社会经济发展的需要 ,为社会经济的可持续发展作出重要贡献     

景观生态—一种综合整体思想的发展

本文对景观生态的提出、发展及目前几个主要学派的观点进行了仔细分析,认为景观生态兴起反映了人们的心理状态,同时正是由于其“双向”研究的观点,使其具备了综合学科的特征。然而目前景观生态首先是一种综合整体思想,如果作为一门学科,其研究范畴应在基本的生态系统到区域之间。     

A tale of four stories: soil ecology, theory, evolution and the publication system

Background

Soil ecology has produced a huge corpus of results on relations between soil organisms, ecosystem processes controlled by these organisms and links between belowground and aboveground processes. However, some soil scientists think that soil ecology is short of modelling and evolutionary approaches and has developed too independently from general ecology. We have tested quantitatively these hypotheses through a bibliographic study (about 23000 articles) comparing soil ecology journals, generalist ecology journals, evolutionary ecology journals and theoretical ecology journals.

Findings

We have shown that soil ecology is not well represented in generalist ecology journals and that soil ecologists poorly use modelling and evolutionary approaches. Moreover, the articles published by a typical soil ecology journal (Soil Biology and Biochemistry) are cited by and cite low percentages of articles published in generalist ecology journals, evolutionary ecology journals and theoretical ecology journals.

Conclusion

This confirms our hypotheses and suggests that soil ecology would benefit from an effort towards modelling and evolutionary approaches. This effort should promote the building of a general conceptual framework for soil ecology and bridges between soil ecology and general ecology. We give some historical reasons for the parsimonious use of modelling and evolutionary approaches by soil ecologists. We finally suggest that a publication system that classifies journals according to their Impact Factors and their level of generality is probably inadequate to integrate “particularity” (empirical observations) and “generality” (general theories), which is the goal of all natural sciences. Such a system might also be particularly detrimental to the development of a science such as ecology that is intrinsically multidisciplinary.     

21世纪初我国草地生态学研究展望

草地退化是我国天然草地面临的突出问题,在21世纪初期,我国的草地生态学将围绕解决草地退化这一核心问题展开深入的研究。其热点领域应在草地恢复生态学,草地界面生态学,草地放牧生态学,草地的健康诊断和草地的价值评估等5个方面。其中草地恢复生态学是治理退化草地的基础;草地界面生态学是剖析退化草地的切入点;草地放牧生态学是调控退化草地的手段;草地健康诊断有助于对草地退化进行客观评价;草地的价值评估则是对草地生态系统效益和服务的估算。     

Defining ecology: Ecological theories,mathematical models,and applied biology in the 1960s and 1970s

Ever since the early decades of this century, there have emerged a number of competing schools of ecology that have attempted to weave the concepts underlying natural resource management and natural-historical traditions into a formal theoretical framework. It was widely believed that the discovery of the fundamental mechanisms underlying ecological phenomena would allow ecologists to articulate mathematically rigorous statements whose validity was not predicated on contingent factors. The formulation of such statements would elevate ecology to the standing of a rigorous scientific discipline on a par with physics. However, there was no agreement as to the fundamental units of ecology. Systems ecologists sought to identify the fundamental organization that tied the physical and biological components of ecosystems into an irreducible unit: the ecosystem was their fundamental unit. Population ecologists sought, instead, to identify the biological mechanisms regulating the abundance and distribution of plant and animal species: to these ecologists, the individual organism was the fundamental unit of ecology, and the physical environment was nothing more than a stage upon which the play of individuals in perennial competition took place. As Joel Hagen has pointed out, the two schools were thus dividied by fundamentally different and irreconcilable assumptions about the nature of ecosystems.Notwithstanding these divisive efforts to elevate the image of ecology, the discipline remained in the shadows of American academia until the mid-1960s, when systems ecologists succeeded in projecting ecology onto the national scene. They did so by seeking closer involvement with practical problems: they argued before Congress that their approach to the theoretical problems of ecology was uniquely suited to the solution of the impending environmental crisis. With the establishment of the International Biological Program, they succeeded in attracting unprecedented levels of funding for systems ecology research. Theoretical population ecologists, on the other hand, found themselves consigned to the outer regions of this new institutional landscape. The systems ecologists' successful capture of the limelight and the purse brought the divisions between them and population ecologists into sharper relief — hence the hardening of the division of ecology observed by Hagen.⁴⁵     

Ecological frames of mind: the role of cognition in behavioral ecology.

Cognitive psychology is the study of how information, from the senses and from memory, is used in the production of behavior. Investigation of the specifics of behavioral adaptation has already led some behavioral ecologists into the domain of animal cognition. I make several arguments for the benefits and the necessity of a sophisticated assessment by ecologists of the cognitive aspects of behavioral adaptation. First, because cognition typically serves to produce adaptive behavior, cognitive structure and function should reflect ecological demands; studies of cognition in ecological contexts are opportunities to understand adaptation. Furthermore, constraints on cognitive properties may help determine how behavior meets the environment. Studies of spatial memory in food-caching corvids exemplify how cognitive aspects of behavior may both reflect and determine specifics of adaptation. Second, many models in behavioral ecology assume certain cognitive abilities, such as timing or counting. Cognitive theory and methodology should be used to determine whether animals possess these abilities. I have provided examples. Third, consideration of cognitive function can lead to original ideas about the details of behavioral adaptation. Without a thorough integration of cognitive psychology with behavioral ecology, our understanding of the relation between behavior and selective pressures will be compromised.     

Colour spaces in ecology and evolutionary biology

The recognition that animals sense the world in a different way than we do has unlocked important lines of research in ecology and evolutionary biology. In practice, the subjective study of natural stimuli has been permitted by perceptual spaces, which are graphical models of how stimuli are perceived by a given animal. Because colour vision is arguably the best‐known sensory modality in most animals, a diversity of colour spaces are now available to visual ecologists, ranging from generalist and basic models allowing rough but robust predictions on colour perception, to species‐specific, more complex models giving accurate but context‐dependent predictions. Selecting among these models is most often influenced by historical contingencies that have associated models to specific questions and organisms; however, these associations are not always optimal. The aim of this review is to provide visual ecologists with a critical perspective on how models of colour space are built, how well they perform and where their main limitations are with regard to their most frequent uses in ecology and evolutionary biology. We propose a classification of models based on their complexity, defined as whether and how they model the mechanisms of chromatic adaptation and receptor opponency, the nonlinear association between the stimulus and its perception, and whether or not models have been fitted to experimental data. Then, we review the effect of modelling these mechanisms on predictions of colour detection and discrimination, colour conspicuousness, colour diversity and diversification, and for comparing the perception of colour traits between distinct perceivers. While a few rules emerge (e.g. opponent log–linear models should be preferred when analysing very distinct colours), in general model parameters still have poorly known effects. Colour spaces have nonetheless permitted significant advances in ecology and evolutionary biology, and more progress is expected if ecologists compare results between models and perform behavioural experiments more routinely. Such an approach would further contribute to a better understanding of colour vision and its links to the behavioural ecology of animals. While visual ecology is essentially a transfer of knowledge from visual sciences to evolutionary ecology, we hope that the discipline will benefit both fields more evenly in the future.     

Ecology after 100 years: Progress and pseudo-progress

Has the science of ecology fulfilled the promises made by the originators of ecological science at the start of the last century? What should ecology achieve? Have good policies for environmental management flowed out of ecological science? These important questions are rarely discussed by ecologists working on detailed studies of individual systems. Until we decide what we wish to achieve as ecologists we cannot define progress toward those goals. Ecologists desire to achieve an understanding of how the natural world operates, how humans have modified the natural world, and how to alleviate problems arising from human actions. Ecologists have made impressive gains over the past century in achieving these goals, but this progress has been uneven. Some sub-disciplines of ecology are well developed empirically and theoretically, while others languish for reasons that are not always clear. Fundamental problems can be lost to view as ecologists fiddle with unimportant pseudo-problems. Bandwagons develop and disappear with limited success in addressing problems. The public demands progress from all the sciences, and as time moves along and problems get worse, more rapid progress is demanded. The result for ecology has too often been poor, short-term science and poor management decisions. But since the science is rarely repeated and the management results may be a generation or two down the line, it is difficult for the public or for scientists to decide how good or bad the scientific advice has been. In ecology over the past 100 years we have made solid achievements in behavioural ecology, population dynamics, and ecological methods, we have made some progress in understanding community and ecosystem dynamics, but we have made less useful progress in developing theoretical ecology, landscape ecology, and natural resource management. The key to increasing progress is to adopt a systems approach with explicit hypotheses, theoretical models, and field experiments on a scale defined by the problem. With continuous feedback between problems, possible solutions, relevant theory and experimental data we can achieve our scientific goals.     

产业生态学最新研究进展及趋势展望

传统末端治理方式的弊端和清洁生产技术的局限性促使人们探求新的污染防治模式,生态学尤其是仿生学的发展激发了人们仿照自然生态系统来改造人类生产系统的想法,基于这种背景,产业生态学应运而生。分析了产业生态学诞生的背景及其形成过程,并全面系统论述了产业生态学领域的国内外进展,识别了目前我国该领域面临的问题与困境,并给出了对策建议。在此基础上,文章从学科发展的角度对产业生态学的发展趋势和前景作了展望。     

Changing Assumptions in Primate Ecology

Ecological research on nonhuman primates developed separately from the discipline of ecology as a whole, and has in the past been characterized by a distinctive set of goals and assumptions. This paper examines some of the problems surrounding these assumptions. Recently, primate ecologists have begun to adopt the conceptual framework of other ecologists; it is argued here that this trend does not in fact solve all the old problems. Finally, the future of primate ecology is considered briefly . [Primates, ecology, adaptation, strategies, optimization]     

Endangered species and a threatened discipline: behavioural ecology

Behavioural ecologists often see little connection between the current conservation crisis and the future of their discipline. This view is myopic because our abilities to investigate and interpret the adaptive significance and evolutionary histories of behaviours are increasingly being compromised in human-dominated landscapes because of species extinctions, habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, and climate change. In this review, we argue that many central issues in behavioural ecology will soon become prohibitively difficult to investigate and interpret, thus impeding the rapid progress that characterizes the field. To address these challenges, behavioural ecologists should design studies not only to answer basic scientific questions but also to provide ancillary information for protection and management of their study organisms and habitats, and then share their biological insights with the applied conservation community.     

The anarchist's guide to ecological theory. Or, we don't need no stinkin' laws

Several ecologists have recently suggested that ecology has several laws. This conclusion contrasts with the views of some philosophers of science, who have suggested that biology cannot have laws. I argue that the debate has been confused because two very different types of law can be recognised: correlative and causal laws. Once we recognise that there is a difference, the argument against causal laws becomes stronger, and instead I suggest that ecologists should recognise that they can and do produce generalisations that are used to build models – nomological machines – that describe the ecological systems they are studying.     

第一届国际青年生态学者论坛综述

为促进中国青年生态学者与海外生态学者的交流与合作,由海外优秀华人生态学者发起的第一届"国际青年生态学者论坛"于2009年6月29-30日在兰州大学举行.本次论坛的交流内容包括了植物一土壤互作关系、区域生态系统结构与功能、生态安全与生态规划、全球变化生态学和环境可持续发展等,表明国内生态学的发展正逐渐从传统的基础理论研究向应用型研究转变.报告内容也从一定程度上反映了我国生态学发展的学科特点、演变方向和分布格局,我国生态学研究逐渐形成了东北、华北、西北和东南四大中心,且各自具有一定的地域特色.文章最后对会议的组织形式和未来规划提出了建议.     

Forces,failles et opportunités de la recherche française en écologie trophique

The French National Institute of Ecology and Environment (INEE) aims at fostering pluridisciplinarity in Environmental Science and, for that purpose, funds ex muros research groups (GDR) on thematic topics. Trophic ecology has been identified as a scientific field in ecology that would greatly benefit from such networking activity, as being profoundly scattered. This has motivated the seeding of a GDR, entitled “GRET”. The contours of the GRET's action, and its ability to fill these gaps within trophic ecology at the French national scale, will depend on the causes of this relative scattering. This study relied on a nationally broadcasted poll aiming at characterizing the field of trophic ecology in France. Amongst all the unique individuals that fulfilled the poll, over 300 belonged at least partly to the field of trophic ecology. The sample included all French public research institutes and career stages. Three main disruptions within the community of scientist in trophic ecology were identified. The first highlighted the lack of interfaces between microbial and trophic ecology. The second evidenced that research questions were strongly linked to single study fields or ecosystem type. Last, research activities are still quite restricted to the ecosystem boundaries. All three rupture points limit the conceptual and applied progression in the field of trophic ecology. Here we show that most of the disruptions within French Trophic Ecology are culturally inherited, rather than motivated by scientific reasons or justified by socio-economic stakes. Comparison with the current literature confirms that these disruptions are not necessarily typical of the French research landscape, but instead echo the general weaknesses of the international research in ecology. Thereby, communication and networking actions within and toward the community of trophic ecologists, as planned within the GRET's objectives, should contribute to fill these gaps, by reintegrating microbes within trophic concepts and setting the seeds for trans- and meta-ecosystemic research opportunities. Once the community of trophic ecologists is aware of the scientific benefit in pushing its boundaries forwards, turning words and good intentions into concrete research projects will depend on the opportunities to obtain research funding.     

Distinguishing technology from biology: a critical review of the use of GPS telemetry data in ecology

In the past decade, ecologists have witnessed vast improvements in our ability to collect animal movement data through animal-borne technology, such as through GPS or ARGOS systems. However, more data does not necessarily yield greater knowledge in understanding animal ecology and conservation. In this paper, we provide a review of the major benefits, problems and potential misuses of GPS/Argos technology to animal ecology and conservation. Benefits are obvious, and include the ability to collect fine-scale spatio-temporal location data on many previously impossible to study animals, such as ocean-going fish, migratory songbirds and long-distance migratory mammals. These benefits come with significant problems, however, imposed by frequent collar failures and high cost, which often results in weaker study design, reduced sample sizes and poorer statistical inference. In addition, we see the divorcing of biologists from a field-based understanding of animal ecology to be a growing problem. Despite these difficulties, GPS devices have provided significant benefits, particularly in the conservation and ecology of wide-ranging species. We conclude by offering suggestions for ecologists on which kinds of ecological questions would currently benefit the most from GPS/Argos technology, and where the technology has been potentially misused. Significant conceptual challenges remain, however, including the links between movement and behaviour, and movement and population dynamics.     

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.     

空间幅度变化对景观格局分析的影响

景观格局指数是量化描述景观格局特征的主要方法之一,各种格局指数的尺度依赖性使比较分析景观格局特征和尺度推绎复杂化,分析不同指数随空间幅度变化的一般行为有助于景观格局分析结果的解释和降低空间尺度推绎的复杂性。研究以2种真实景观和27种模拟景观为分析对象,考查了16种常用的景观水平格局指数随空间幅度变化行为。根据这些指数因幅度变化行为可预测性把它们分为两类：第1类随幅度变化可预测性强,指数与幅度之间的关系可用简单的函数关系来表达;这类指数包括缀块数、边界总长、景观形状指数和缀块丰度密度;前两者随幅度增加呈幂函数形式增加,而缀块丰度密度随幅度增加呈幂函数下降,景观形状指数随幅度增加呈直线增加。第2类指数随幅度变化的可预测性较差,指数随幅度的变化存在多种可能(不同形式的增加、减小或保持不变),不可用一种或多种简单的函数关系来描述所有的情况。这类指数包括缀块丰度、缀块密度、边界密度、最大缀块指数、平均缀块面积、缀块面积标准差、缀块面积变异系数、平均缀块形状指数、面积加权平均缀块形状指数、双对数回归分维数、聚集度指数与Shannon多样性指数。第2类指数随幅度的变化行为受景观格局特征和指数本身算法的影响。总体上来说,第2类格局指数随幅度变化呈折线增加或减小;但当景观的缀块类型较多、各类型优势度比较均等、空间分布格局比较随机时,它们随幅度变化形为的可预测性增加,随幅度增加的函数关系主要有3种：幂函数减小、对数函数增加或直线增加,因指数和格局特征不同而异。研究的结果在揭示了常用景观指数随幅度变化的一般关系外,也启示我们在进行景观格局的比较分析,比较景观的幅度应相同或采用尺度效应图(scalograms)更有效。