Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere Ellis, Erle C
Ecological monographs,
2015-August, 20150801, August 2015, 2015-08-00, Volume:
85, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Humans, unlike any other multicellular species in Earth's history, have emerged as a global force that is transforming the ecology of an entire planet. It is no longer possible to understand, ...predict, or successfully manage ecological pattern, process, or change without understanding why and how humans reshape these over the long term. Here, a general causal theory is presented to explain why human societies gained the capacity to globally alter the patterns, processes, and dynamics of ecology and how these anthropogenic alterations unfold over time and space as societies themselves change over human generational time. Building on existing theories of ecosystem engineering, niche construction, inclusive inheritance, cultural evolution, ultrasociality, and social change, this theory of anthroecological change holds that sociocultural evolution of subsistence regimes based on ecosystem engineering, social specialization, and non-kin exchange, or "sociocultural niche construction," is the main cause of both the long-term upscaling of human societies and their unprecedented transformation of the biosphere. Human sociocultural niche construction can explain, where classic ecological theory cannot, the sustained transformative effects of human societies on biogeography, ecological succession, ecosystem processes, and the ecological patterns and processes of landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere. Anthroecology theory generates empirically testable hypotheses on the forms and trajectories of long-term anthropogenic ecological change that have significant theoretical and practical implications across the subdisciplines of ecology and conservation. Though still at an early stage of development, anthroecology theory aligns with and integrates established theoretical frameworks including social-ecological systems, social metabolism, countryside biogeography, novel ecosystems, and anthromes. The "fluxes of nature" are fast becoming "cultures of nature." To investigate, understand, and address the ultimate causes of anthropogenic ecological change, not just the consequences, human sociocultural processes must become as much a part of ecological theory and practice as biological and geophysical processes are now. Strategies for achieving this goal and for advancing ecological science and conservation in an increasingly anthropogenic biosphere are presented.
Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere Ellis, Erle C.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences,
03/2011, Volume:
369, Issue:
1938
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Human populations and their use of land have transformed most of the terrestrial biosphere into anthropogenic biomes (anthromes), causing a variety of novel ecological patterns and processes to ...emerge. To assess whether human populations and their use of land have directly altered the terrestrial biosphere sufficiently to indicate that the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Human alteration of the terrestrial biosphere has been significant for more than 8000 years. However, only in the past century has the majority of the terrestrial biosphere been transformed into intensively used anthromes with predominantly novel anthropogenic ecological processes. At present, even were human populations to decline substantially or use of land become far more efficient, the current global extent, duration, type and intensity of human transformation of ecosystems have already irreversibly altered the terrestrial biosphere at levels sufficient to leave an unambiguous geological record differing substantially from that of the Holocene or any prior epoch. It remains to be seen whether the anthropogenic biosphere will be sustained and continue to evolve.
Human use of land has been transforming Earth's ecology for millennia. From hunting and foraging to burning the land to farming to industrial agriculture, increasingly intensive human use of land has ...reshaped global patterns of biodiversity, ecosystems, landscapes, and climate. This review examines recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, environmental history, and model-based reconstructions that reveal a planet largely transformed by land use over more than 10,000 years. Although land use has always sustained human societies, its ecological consequences are diverse and sometimes opposing, both degrading and enriching soils, shrinking wild habitats and shaping novel ones, causing extinctions of some species while propagating and domesticating others, and both emitting and absorbing the greenhouse gases that cause global climate change. By transforming Earth's ecology, land use has literally paved the way for the Anthropocene. Now, a better future depends on land use strategies that can effectively sustain people together with the rest of terrestrial nature on Earth's limited land.
High spatial resolution three-dimensional (3D) measurements of vegetation by remote sensing are advancing ecological research and environmental management. However, substantial economic and ...logistical costs limit this application, especially for observing phenological dynamics in ecosystem structure and spectral traits. Here we demonstrate a new aerial remote sensing system enabling routine and inexpensive aerial 3D measurements of canopy structure and spectral attributes, with properties similar to those of LIDAR, but with RGB (red-green-blue) spectral attributes for each point, enabling high frequency observations within a single growing season. This “Ecosynth” methodology applies photogrammetric “Structure from Motion” computer vision algorithms to large sets of highly overlapping low altitude (<130m) aerial photographs acquired using off-the-shelf digital cameras mounted on an inexpensive (<USD$4000), lightweight (<2kg), hobbyist-grade unmanned aerial system (UAS). Ecosynth 3D point clouds with densities of 30–67pointsm−2 were produced using commercial computer vision software from digital photographs acquired repeatedly by UAS over three 6.25ha (250m×250m) Temperate Deciduous forest sites in Maryland USA. Ecosynth point clouds were georeferenced with a precision of 1.2–4.1m horizontal radial root mean square error (RMSE) and 0.4–1.2m vertical RMSE. Understory digital terrain models (DTMs) and canopy height models (CHMs) were generated from leaf-on and leaf-off point clouds using procedures commonly applied to LIDAR point clouds. At two sites, Ecosynth CHMs were strong predictors of field-measured tree heights (R2 0.63 to 0.84) and were highly correlated with a LIDAR CHM (R 0.87) acquired 4days earlier, though Ecosynth-based estimates of aboveground biomass and carbon densities included significant errors (31–36% of field-based estimates). Repeated scanning of a 50m×50m forested area at six different times across a 16 month period revealed ecologically significant dynamics in canopy color at different heights and a structural shift upward in canopy density, as demonstrated by changes in vertical height profiles of point density and relative RGB brightness. Changes in canopy relative greenness were highly correlated (R2=0.87) with MODIS NDVI time series for the same area and vertical differences in canopy color revealed the early green up of the dominant canopy species, Liriodendron tulipifera, strong evidence that Ecosynth time series measurements can capture vegetation structural and spectral phenological dynamics at the spatial scale of individual trees. The ability to observe canopy phenology in 3D at high temporal resolutions represents a breakthrough in forest ecology. Inexpensive user-deployed technologies for multispectral 3D scanning of vegetation at landscape scales (<1km2) heralds a new era of participatory remote sensing by field ecologists, community foresters and the interested public.
•Forest structure was mapped in 3D using a low cost unmanned aerial system (UAS).•Geometrically accurate 3D point clouds were generated using computer vision.•Computer vision natively couples observations of vegetation spectra and structure.•Repeat scans reveal dynamics in canopy attributes at the scale of individual trees.•Forest height, carbon, and color can now be mapped inexpensively on demand.
Sharing the land between nature and people Ellis, Erle C
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
06/2019, Volume:
364, Issue:
6447
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Conserving the planet's ecological heritage requires a new level of societal engagement
Human societies have long reshaped environments to sustain themselves. From bands of hunter-gatherers to ...agrarian empires to global supply chains, human societies have evolved unprecedented capacities to transform the biosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, and climate (
1
). Today, the ups and downs of economies and polities shape Earth's ecology as surely as the weather does. Yet even though human societies have never been more globally capable, interconnected, or interdependent, the social institutions, processes, and infrastructures that sustain people and the rest of life on land remain remarkably complex and heterogeneous. From parcels to planet, the management of Earth's limited land is in the hands of nearly 8 billion people with different needs, wants, abilities, perspectives, and social relations. A better future for people and for the rest of nature will depend on bringing all these hands together to shape it.
Ecological remote sensing is being transformed by three-dimensional (3D), multispectral measurements of forest canopies by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and computer vision structure from motion ...(SFM) algorithms. Yet applications of this technology have out-paced understanding of the relationship between collection method and data quality. Here, UAV-SFM remote sensing was used to produce 3D multispectral point clouds of Temperate Deciduous forests at different levels of UAV altitude, image overlap, weather, and image processing. Error in canopy height estimates was explained by the alignment of the canopy height model to the digital terrain model (R2 = 0.81) due to differences in lighting and image overlap. Accounting for this, no significant differences were observed in height error at different levels of lighting, altitude, and side overlap. Overall, accurate estimates of canopy height compared to field measurements (R2 = 0.86, RMSE = 3.6 m) and LIDAR (R2 = 0.99, RMSE = 3.0 m) were obtained under optimal conditions of clear lighting and high image overlap (>80%). Variation in point cloud quality appeared related to the behavior of SFM 'image features'. Future research should consider the role of image features as the fundamental unit of SFM remote sensing, akin to the pixel of optical imaging and the laser pulse of LIDAR.
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•Biodiversity and ecosystem services are perceived differently by different stakeholders.•Land management decisions require negotiating trade-offs among values and ...stakeholders.•Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) offers a more inclusive framework for addressing human–nature relationships.•An NCP lens may help guide more equitable and effective land governance.•Land systems research could advance the application of the NCP framework.
Land is increasingly managed to serve multiple societal demands. Beyond food, fiber, habitation, and recreation, land is now being called on to meet demands for carbon sequestration, water purification, biodiversity conservation, and many others. Meeting these multiple demands requires negotiating trade-offs among the choices and differing values placed on them by diverse stakeholders and institutions. Here, we review recent advances in understanding the role of diverse values and trade-offs in managing landscapes to support multiple demands, from a land systems perspective. Recent work by the IPBES and others has recognized the need to accommodate a greater diversity of values into decision-making through the framework of ‘nature’s contributions to people (NCP)’ providing a perspective on human–nature relations that goes beyond a stock-flow, ecosystem services, decision-making framing. NCP offers real potential to enable land system science to better integrate the many diverse value systems of stakeholders and institutions into efforts to better understand and more fairly govern the increasingly wicked tradeoffs of land systems in the Anthropocene, especially under conditions of less well functioning institutions and governance.
Centering Earth in policy-making Ellis, Erle C
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
04/2024, Volume:
384, Issue:
6693
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
A pair of authors advocate scaling governance structures to better address planetary crises
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