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"Anthropocene epoch"
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Our future in the Anthropocene biosphere
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed an interconnected and tightly coupled globalized world in rapid change. This article sets the scientific stage for understanding and responding to such change for global sustainability and resilient societies. We provide a systemic overview of the current situation where people and nature are dynamically intertwined and embedded in the biosphere, placing shocks and extreme events as part of this dynamic; humanity has become the major force in shaping the future of the Earth system as a whole; and the scale and pace of the human dimension have caused climate change, rapid loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities, and loss of resilience to deal with uncertainty and surprise. Taken together, human actions are challenging the biosphere foundation for a prosperous development of civilizations. The Anthropocene reality— of rising system-wide turbulence—calls for transformative change towards sustainable futures. Emerging technologies, social innovations, broader shifts in cultural repertoires, as well as a diverse portfolio of active stewardship of human actions in support of a resilient biosphere are highlighted as essential parts of such transformations.
Journal Article
Marine top predators as climate and ecosystem sentinels
The rapid pace of environmental change in the Anthropocene necessitates the development of a new suite of tools for measuring ecosystem dynamics. Sentinel species can provide insight into ecosystem function, identify hidden risks to human health, and predict future change. As sentinels, marine apex (top) predators offer a unique perspective into ocean processes, given that they can move across ocean basins and amplify trophic information across multiple spatiotemporal scales. Because use of the terms “ecosystem sentinel” and “climate sentinel” has proliferated in the scientific literature, there is a need to identify the properties that make marine predators effective sentinels. We provide a clear definition of the term “sentinel”, review the attributes of species identified as sentinels, and describe how a suite of such sentinels could strengthen our understanding and management of marine ecosystems. We contend that the use of marine predators as ecosystem sentinels will enable rapid response and adaptation to ecosystem variability and change.
Journal Article
Defaunation in the Anthropocene
We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. Particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. Among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. Invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. Such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. Much remains unknown about this \"Anthropocene defaunation\"; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. Clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet's sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.
Journal Article
Site fidelity as a maladaptive behavior in the Anthropocene
Site fidelity, or the behavior of returning to previously visited locations, has been observed across taxa and ecosystems. By developing familiarity with a particular location, site fidelity provides a range of benefits and is advantageous in stable or predictable environments. However, the Anthropocene is characterized by rates of environmental change that outpace the evolutionary history of extant taxa, which can result in site fidelity becoming maladaptive. Here we outline the theoretical underpinnings for maladaptive site fidelity and synthesize empirical research supporting its occurrence, and examine it in the context of a related concept, ecological traps, whereby organisms exhibit maladaptive behavior in habitat selection. We then discuss adaptive mechanisms that may enable species with site fidelity to continue to persist in the Anthropocene. With ongoing environmental change, researchers and practitioners should expect fidelity-induced ecological traps to become more common, and initiate projects to identify and understand their origins. Such knowledge will help conserve the widespread and ecologically important behavior of site fidelity.
Journal Article
Coral reef ecosystem functioning
Coral reefs are in global decline. Reversing this trend is a primary management objective but doing so depends on understanding what keeps reefs in desirable states (ie “functional”). Although there is evidence that coral reefs thrive under certain conditions (eg moderate water temperatures, limited fishing pressure), the dynamic processes that promote ecosystem functioning and its internal drivers (ie community structure) are poorly defined and explored. Specifically, despite decades of research suggesting a positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across biomes, few studies have explored this relationship in coral reef systems. We propose a practical definition of coral reef functioning, centered on eight complementary ecological processes: calcium carbonate production and bioerosion, primary production and herbivory, secondary production and predation, and nutrient uptake and release. Connecting research on species niches, functional diversity of communities, and rates of the eight key processes can provide a novel, quantitative understanding of reef functioning and its dependence on coral reef communities that will chart the transition of coral reefs in the Anthropocene. This will contribute urgently needed guidance for the management of these important ecosystems.
Journal Article
Sustainable intensification of agriculture for human prosperity and global sustainability
There is an ongoing debate on what constitutes sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA). In this paper, we propose that a paradigm for sustainable intensification can be defined and translated into an operational framework for agricultural development. We argue that this paradigm must now be defined—at all scales—in the context of rapidly rising global environmental changes in the Anthropocene, while focusing on eradicating poverty and hunger and contributing to human wellbeing. The criteria and approach we propose, for a paradigm shift towards sustainable intensification of agriculture, integrates the dual and interdependent goals of using sustainable practices to meet rising human needs while contributing to resilience and sustainability of landscapes, the biosphere, and the Earth system. Both of these, in turn, are required to sustain the future viability of agriculture. This paradigm shift aims at repositioning world agriculture from its current role as the world's single largest driver of global environmental change, to becoming a key contributor of a global transition to a sustainable world within a safe operating space on Earth.
Journal Article
The unrealized potential of herbaria for global change biology
Plant and fungal specimens in herbaria are becoming primary resources for investigating how plant phenology and geographic distributions shift with climate change, greatly expanding inferences across spatial, temporal, and phylogenetic dimensions. However, these specimens contain a wealth of additional data, including nutrients, defensive compounds, herbivore damage, disease lesions, and signatures of physiological processes, that capture ecological and evolutionary responses to the Anthropocene but which are less frequently utilized. Here, we outline the diversity of herbarium data, global change topics to which they have been applied, and new hypotheses they could inform. We find that herbarium data have been used extensively to study impacts of climate change and invasive species, but that such data are less commonly used to address other drivers of biodiversity loss, including habitat conversion, pollution, and overexploitation. In addition, we note that fungal specimens are under-explored relative to vascular plants. To facilitate broader application of plant and fungal specimens in global change research, we consider the limitations of these data and modern sampling and statistical tools that may be applied to surmount challenges they present. Using a case study of insect herbivory, we illustrate how novel herbarium data may be employed to test hypotheses for which few data exist. With the goal of positioning herbaria as hubs for global change research, we suggest future research directions and curation priorities.
Journal Article
BioTIME: A database of biodiversity time series for the Anthropocene
Motivation: The BioTIME database contains raw data on species identities and abundances in ecological assemblages through time. These data enable users to calculate temporal trends in biodiversity within and amongst assemblages using a broad range of metrics. BioTIME is being developed as a community‐led open‐source database of biodiversity time series. Our goal is to accelerate and facilitate quantitative analysis of temporal patterns of biodiversity in the Anthropocene.Main types of variables included: The database contains 8,777,413 species abundance records, from assemblages consistently sampled for a minimum of 2 years, which need not necessarily be consecutive. In addition, the database contains metadata relating to sampling methodology and contextual information about each record.Spatial location and grain: BioTIME is a global database of 547,161 unique sampling locations spanning the marine, freshwater and terrestrial realms. Grain size varies across datasets from 0.0000000158 km2 (158 cm2) to 100 km2 (1,000,000,000,000 cm2).Time period and grain: BioTIME records span from 1874 to 2016. The minimal temporal grain across all datasets in BioTIME is a year.Major taxa and level of measurement: BioTIME includes data from 44,440 species across the plant and animal kingdoms, ranging from plants, plankton and terrestrial invertebrates to small and large vertebrates.
Journal Article
Flow intermittence and ecosystem services in rivers of the Anthropocene
1. Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) are watercourses that cease flow at some point in time and space. Arguably Earth's most widespread type of flowing water, IRES are expanding where Anthropocenic climates grow drier and human demands for water escalate. 2. However, IRES have attracted far less research than perennial rivers and are undervalued by society, jeopardizing their restoration or protection. Provision of ecosystem services by IRES is especially poorly understood, hindering their integration into management plans in most countries. 3. We conceptualize how flow intermittence governs ecosystem service provision and transfers at local and river-basin scales during flowing, non-flowing and dry phases. Even when dry or not flowing, IRES perform multiple ecosystem services that complement those of nearby perennial rivers. 4. Synthesis and applications. Conceptualizing how flow intermittence in rivers and streams governs ecosystem services has applied a socio-ecological perspective for validating the ecosystem services of intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams. This can be applied at all flow phases and in assessing impacts of altered flow intermittence on rivers and their ecosystem services in the Anthropocene.
Journal Article