Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems
25 Jul 1997-Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science)-Vol. 277, Iss: 5325, pp 494-499
TL;DR: Human alteration of Earth is substantial and growing as discussed by the authors, between one-third and one-half of the land surface has been transformed by human action; the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; more atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by humanity than by all natural terrestrial sources combined; more than half of all accessible surface fresh water is put to use by humanity; and about one-quarter of the bird species on Earth have been driven to extinction.
Abstract: Human alteration of Earth is substantial and growing. Between one-third and one-half of the land surface has been transformed by human action; the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; more atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by humanity than by all natural terrestrial sources combined; more than half of all accessible surface fresh water is put to use by humanity; and about one-quarter of the bird species on Earth have been driven to extinction. By these and other standards, it is clear that we live on a human-dominated planet.
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University of Wisconsin-Madison1, University of Maryland, College Park2, Carnegie Institution for Science3, National Center for Atmospheric Research4, University of Alaska Fairbanks5, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution6, Stanford University7, University of Bristol8, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign9
TL;DR: Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity.
Abstract: Land use has generally been considered a local environmental issue, but it is becoming a force of global importance. Worldwide changes to forests, farmlands, waterways, and air are being driven by the need to provide food, fiber, water, and shelter to more than six billion people. Global croplands, pastures, plantations, and urban areas have expanded in recent decades, accompanied by large increases in energy, water, and fertilizer consumption, along with considerable losses of biodiversity. Such changes in land use have enabled humans to appropriate an increasing share of the planet’s resources, but they also potentially undermine the capacity of ecosystems to sustain food production, maintain freshwater and forest resources, regulate climate and air quality, and ameliorate infectious diseases. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between immediate human needs and maintaining the capacity of the biosphere to provide goods and services in the long term.
10,117 citations
Stockholm Environment Institute1, Stockholm University2, Australian National University3, University of Alaska Fairbanks4, Université catholique de Louvain5, University of East Anglia6, Wageningen University and Research Centre7, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences8, University of Oxford9, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research10, James Cook University11, Arizona State University12, Royal Institute of Technology13, University of Minnesota14, University of Vermont15, Stockholm International Water Institute16, California State University San Marcos17, Goddard Institute for Space Studies18, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation19, University of Arizona20, Max Planck Society21
TL;DR: Identifying and quantifying planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed could help prevent human activities from causing unacceptable environmental change, argue Johan Rockstrom and colleagues.
Abstract: Identifying and quantifying planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed could help prevent human activities from causing unacceptable environmental change, argue Johan Rockstrom and colleagues.
8,837 citations
TL;DR: A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society.
Abstract: A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.
6,569 citations
Cites background from "Human Domination of Earth's Ecosyst..."
...Doing so in ways that do not compromise environmental integrit...
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TL;DR: Recent studies show that a loss of resilience usually paves the way for a switch to an alternative state, which suggests that strategies for sustainable management of such ecosystems should focus on maintaining resilience.
Abstract: All ecosystems are exposed to gradual changes in climate, nutrient loading, habitat fragmentation or biotic exploitation. Nature is usually assumed to respond to gradual change in a smooth way. However, studies on lakes, coral reefs, oceans, forests and arid lands have shown that smooth change can be interrupted by sudden drastic switches to a contrasting state. Although diverse events can trigger such shifts, recent studies show that a loss of resilience usually paves the way for a switch to an alternative state. This suggests that strategies for sustainable management of such ecosystems should focus on maintaining resilience.
6,213 citations
Cites background from "Human Domination of Earth's Ecosyst..."
...Theoretical framework Ecosystem response to gradually changing conditions External conditions to ecosystems such as climate, inputs of nutrients or toxic chemicals, groundwater reduction, habitat fragmentation, harvest or loss of species diversity often change gradually, even linearly, with tim...
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TL;DR: It is shown that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing ‘yield gaps’ on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and reducing waste, which could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
Abstract: Increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale. To meet the world's future food security and sustainability needs, food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture's environmental footprint must shrink dramatically. Here we analyse solutions to this dilemma, showing that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing 'yield gaps' on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and reducing waste. Together, these strategies could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture.
5,954 citations
References
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4,002 citations
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the biogeograpbic consequences of the creation of habitat islands of different sizes and have provided little of practical value to managers in the field of landscape management.
Abstract: . Abstract Research on fragmented ecosystems has focused mostly on the biogeograpbic consequences of the creation of habitat “islands” of different sizes and has provided little of practical value to managers. However, ecosystem fragmentation causes large changes in the physical environment as well as biogeograpbic changes. Fragmentation generally results in a landscape that consists of remnant areas of native vegetation surrounded by a matrix of agricultural or other developed land. As a result fluxes of radiation, momentum (La, wind), water, and nutrients across the landscape are altered significantly. These in turn can have important influences on biota within remnant areas, especially at or near the edge between the remnant and the surrounding matrix. The isolation of remnant areas by clearing also has important consequences for the biota. These consequences vary with the time since isolation distance from other remnants, and degree of connectivity with other remnants. The influences of physical and biogeographic changes are modified by the size, shape, and position in the landscape of individual remnant, with larger remnants being less adversely affected by the fragmentation process. The Dynamics of remnant areas are predominantly driven by factors arising in the surrounding landscape. Management of, and research on, fragmented ecosystems should be directed at understanding and controlling these external influences as much as at the biota of the remnants themselves. There is a strong need to develop an integrated approach to landscape management that places conservation reserves in the context of the overall landscape
3,869 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the biogeograpbic consequences of the creation of habitat islands of different sizes and have provided little of practical value to managers in the field of landscape management.
Abstract: . Abstract Research on fragmented ecosystems has focused mostly on the biogeograpbic consequences of the creation of habitat “islands” of different sizes and has provided little of practical value to managers. However, ecosystem fragmentation causes large changes in the physical environment as well as biogeograpbic changes. Fragmentation generally results in a landscape that consists of remnant areas of native vegetation surrounded by a matrix of agricultural or other developed land. As a result fluxes of radiation, momentum (La, wind), water, and nutrients across the landscape are altered significantly. These in turn can have important influences on biota within remnant areas, especially at or near the edge between the remnant and the surrounding matrix. The isolation of remnant areas by clearing also has important consequences for the biota. These consequences vary with the time since isolation distance from other remnants, and degree of connectivity with other remnants. The influences of physical and biogeographic changes are modified by the size, shape, and position in the landscape of individual remnant, with larger remnants being less adversely affected by the fragmentation process. The Dynamics of remnant areas are predominantly driven by factors arising in the surrounding landscape. Management of, and research on, fragmented ecosystems should be directed at understanding and controlling these external influences as much as at the biota of the remnants themselves. There is a strong need to develop an integrated approach to landscape management that places conservation reserves in the context of the overall landscape
3,715 citations
TL;DR: Biological invasions into wholly new regions are a consequence of a far reaching but underappreciated component of global environmental change, the human-caused breakdown of biogeographic barriers to species dispersal.
Abstract: Biological invasions into wholly new regions are a consequence of a far reaching but underappreciated component of global environmental change, the human-caused breakdown of biogeographic barriers to species dispersal . Human activity moves species from place to place both accidentally and deliberately-and it does so at rates that are without precedent in the last tens of millions of years. As a result , taxa that evolved in isolation from each other are being forced into contact in an instant of evolutionary time. This human-caused breakdown of barriers to dispersal sets in motion changes that may seem less important than the changing composition of the atmosphere , climate change , or tropical deforestation-but they are significant for several reasons. First , to date , biological invasions have caused more species extinctions than have resulted from human-caused climatic change or the changing composition of the atmosphere . Only land use change probably has caused more extinction, and (as we later discuss) land use change interacts strongly with biological invasions. Second, the effects of human-caused biological invasions are long-term: changes in climate, the atmosphere, and land use may be reversible in hundreds to thousands of years, but the breakdown of biogeographic barriers has resulted in self-maintaining and evolving
3,195 citations
Book•
06 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The first book on invasion biology, and still the most cited, Elton's masterpiece provides an accessible, engaging introduction to one of the most important environmental crises of the authors' time.
Abstract: Much as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was a call to action against the pesticides that were devastating bird populations, Charles S. Elton's classic "The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants" sounded an early warning about an environmental catastrophe that has become all too familiar today-the invasion of nonnative species. From kudzu to zebra mussels to Asian long-horned beetles, nonnative species are colonizing new habitats around the world at an alarming rate thanks to accidental and intentional human intervention. One of the leading causes of extinctions of native animals and plants, invasive species also wreak severe economic havoc, causing $79 billion worth of damage in the United States alone. Elton explains the devastating effects that invasive species can have on local ecosystems in clear, concise language and with numerous examples. The first book on invasion biology, and still the most cited, Elton's masterpiece provides an accessible, engaging introduction to one of the most important environmental crises of our time. Charles S. Elton was one of the founders of ecology, who also established and led Oxford University's Bureau of Animal Population. His work has influenced generations of ecologists and zoologists, and his publications remain central to the literature in modern biology. "History has caught up with Charles Elton's foresight, and "The Ecology of Invasions" can now be seen as one of the central scientific books of our century."-David Quammen, from the Foreword to "Killer Algae: The True Tale of a Biological Invasion"
2,530 citations