Biodiversity in the Anthropocene

Following up on some links from an earlier post the following papers by Erle Ellis & various colleagues came up: 

1- Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world (2008, PDF)

2- Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000 (2010, PDF)

3- Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere (2011, PDF)

4- All Is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene (2012, read this for a better understanding)

That's is a lot to take in. On one level the work is quantifying (with a lot of maps) "anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere". On another level it uses the data to make statements on the need for new conceptual categories of land use.

Between 1700 and 2000, the terrestrial biosphere made the critical transition from mostly wild to mostly anthropogenic, passing the 50% mark early in the 20th century. At present, and ever more in the future, the form and process of terrestrial ecosystems in most biomes will be predominantly anthropogenic, the product of land use and other direct human interactions with ecosystems. Ecological research and conservation efforts in all but a few biomes would benefit from a primary focus on the novel remnant, recovering and managed ecosystems embedded within used lands.

But it is not all bad news:

Anthropogenic global changes in biodiversity are generally portrayed in terms of massive native species losses or invasions caused by recent human disturbance. Yet these biodiversity changes and others caused directly by human populations and their use of land tend to co-occur as long-term biodiversity change processes in the Anthropocene. Here we explore contemporary anthropogenic global patterns in vascular plant species richness at regional landscape scales by combining spatially explicit models and estimates for native species loss together with gains in exotics caused by species invasions and the introduction of agricultural domesticates and ornamental exotic plants. The patterns thus derived confirm that while native losses are likely significant across at least half of Earth's ice-free land, model predictions indicate that plant species richness has increased overall in most regional landscapes, mostly because species invasions tend to exceed native losses. 

There is a tool:

Anthropogenic species richness (ASR) results when humans interact with native patterns of species richness. Within a given area, ASR can be quantified as the sum of native species richness (N), anthropogenic loss of native species (ASL) and anthropogenic species increase (ASI). 

And there is a philosophical point:

Anthropogenic biomes point to a necessary turnaround in ecological science and education, especially for North Americans. Beginning with the first mention of ecology in school, the biosphere has long been depicted as being composed of natural biomes, perpetuating an outdated view of the world as “natural ecosystems with humans disturbing them”. Although this model has long been challenged by ecologists, ... it remains the mainstream view. Anthropogenic biomes tell a completely different story, one of “human systems, with natural ecosystems embedded within them”. This is no minor change in the story we tell our children and each other. Yet it is necessary for sustainable management of the biosphere in the 21st century. Anthropogenic biomes clearly show the inextricable intermingling of human and natural systems almost everywhere on Earth’s terrestrial surface, demonstrating that interactions between these systems can no longer be avoided in any substantial way. Moreover, human interactions with ecosystems mediated through the atmosphere (eg climate change) are even more pervasive and are disproportionately altering the areas least impacted by humans directly (polar and arid lands).

And there are also catch phrases:

The big picture: all is change

All is not loss: sustaining biodiversity in anthromes
The anthropogenic melting pots

Anthropogenic succession: thinning globally, enriching locally

Ecologists go home!

Amazonian garden dissected

In Charles C. Mann's '1493' (earlier) we find this glossed picture of an Amazonian garden in N.E. Brazil. It shows the detailed and intricate knowledge behind a good garden. 

We know nothing of untamed Nature

"We know nothing of untamed Nature, because our own landscape is entirely subject to our needs and desires. If it sometimes strikes us as untamed, it is either because in our forests, for instance its changes operate to a slower rhythm; or because as in the mountains the problems were of such complexity that Man has tackled them in detail rather than in one systematic assault. Such coherence as has resulted from these innumerable individual initiatives now seems to share the original primitive character of the mountain-world, whereas in fact it is due to an interlocking chain of decisions and enterprises, each of which seemed at the time to be independent of the others. Yet even the wildest of European landscapes has something of order and proportion about it. (Poussin was the incomparable interpreter of this.) Walk among our mountains and you will notice the contrast between forest and bare slope, the relation between the forest and the meadows below it: and the variety of expression which comes about as first one kind of vegetation, and then another, dominates the scene Travel in America, and you will realize that this sublime harmony, far from being the spontaneous expression of Nature herself, is the result of agreements long sought for between mankind and the site in question. What causes us to gape, in all simplicity, are the traces of our bygone enterprise. " - Claude Levi-Strauss.

Novel ecosystems [the science behind cryptoforestry]

16 names have signed 'Novel ecosystems: theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order'. It's something of a manifesto arguing for a new approach within ecology to the newly emerging landscapes of the anthropocene. The image is from a 2009 article in Nature on novel ecosystems as Raggamuffin Earth.

Most of the world’s ecosystems are now impacted by humans to a greater or lesser extent, and humans thus play an important role in modifying or regulating the types and rates of ecosystem change. In addition, global trading has breached biogeographical boundaries and facilitated the spread of species into regions that they would probably never have reached under normal
conditions.

Novel ecosystems (also termed ‘emerging ecosystems’) have species compositions and relative abundances that have not occurred previously within a given biome. The key characteristics are  (1) novelty: new species combinations, with the potential for changes in ecosystem functioning; and  (2) human agency: ecosystems that are the result of deliberate or inadvertent human action, but do not depend on continued human intervention for their maintenance. Such ecosystems result from biotic response to human-induced abiotic conditions and/or novel biotic elements (e.g. land degradation, enrichment of soil fertility, introduction of invasive species). This includes the cessation of management of systems that have been managed or created by humans (e.g. agroforestry systems, pastoral land). New species combinations arise frequently in today’s world in conditions of strong direct or indirect human impact. In particular, there are three main reasons for their existence.

1 - Human impact has resulted in local extinction of most of the original animal, plant and microbial populations and/or the introduction of a suite of species not previously present in that biogeographical region.
2 - Predominating urban, cultivated or degraded landscapes around target ecosystems create dispersal barriers for many animal, plant and microbial species.
3 - Direct (e.g. removal of natural soil, dam construction, harvesting, pollution) and indirect (e.g. erosion due to lack of vegetation or overgrazing) human impact has resulted either in major changes in the abiotic environment or a decrease in the original propagule species pool, both of which can prevent the re-establishment of pre-existing species assemblages.

These types of ecosystem can be thought of as occupying a zone somewhere in the middle of the gradient between ‘natural’ or ‘wild’ ecosystems, on one hand, and intensively managed systems on the other hand.

Quotes from Aldo Leopold

"The weeds in a city lot convey the same lesson as the redwoods; the farmer may see in his cow-pasture what may not be vouchsafed to the scientist adventuring in the South Seas." - Aldo Leopold.

Finally I read that classic of US nature writing: A Sand County Almanac (1949) by Aldo Leopold. It's a wonderful book that mixes slightly insane hyperbole, dreamy-yet-factual descriptions of place, remarkable ecological observations that are still urgent today. Invading species, the history of landscapes, the husbandry of wild species, the need to think like a mountain (that is seeing ecosystems rather than species), the place of top predators in nature, the dangers of tourism, the moral need for wildness. The concerns of Leopold are modern, his language is that of an antiquated American gentleman, formal but pleasant. Leopold is voice from a bygone age, his book I will reread.  

"Just as there is honor among thieves, so there is solidarity and cooperation among plant and animal pests. Where one pest is stopped by natural barriers, another arrives to breach the same wall by a new approach. In the end every region and every resource gets their quota of uninvited ecological guests."

'Nature' does not exist for everyone

Achuar map of their territory.

In an interview with Phillipe Descola (earlier, earlier, earlier), published in the Tipiti journal, comes the following quote that is good to have on record as it explains how Descola came to see during his fieldwork with the Achuar that nature does not exist:

...what really made me marvel was the realization that, although the Achuar certainly recognized certain discontinuities between humans and non-humans, these discontinuities were radically different from our own. And this was a bit surprising in an expected way, but also in an unexpected one. I was expecting this because I’d read, of course, not only the South American ethnography, but also Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim and a few others pioneers of our discipline whose work was entirely devoted to resolve this bizarre scandal, that some people appear not to make distinctions between humans and non-humans. So, I was prepared to find that. I was prepared to find it at the level of, as we would say at the time, ‘representations’ at the level of ways of thinking about life. But I had no way of understanding how people would actually live with this idea and put it into practice, or really experience the world in this fashion. And this is the discovery. No? It’s not only what people say; their whole way of life revolved around the fact that they didn’t make a distinction between nature and society.

Animal spotting without animals

This book doesn't give the year of its publication but who cares. It's a Dutch translation of a German guidebook by Klaus Richarz and it helps you identify animals through their unique environmental footprint. Every second page is filled with amazing pictures, showing the wide range of traces that animals leave behind: footsteps in the snow, nests and burrows, food remains, vomit, droppings, and much more. This is not just a guidebook but a catalogue of the ingenuity of everyday European birds, mammals, spiders, ants and insects. This book is fun to browse through ever if you have never set foot outside your condominium. I am going to carry it with me on future cryptoforest crawls.

The Nth mind

When making associations from the starting-concept of the third  Nth landscape the first stop can only be Brion Gysin and William Burroughs' The Third Mind.   

It is not the history of a literary collaboration but rather the complete fusion in a praxis of two subjectivities, two subjectivities that metamorphose into a third; it is from this collusion that a new author emerges, an absent third person, invisible and beyond grasp, decoding the silence. The book is therefore the negation of the omnipresent and all powerful author—the geometrist who clings to his inspiration as coming from divine inspiration, a mission, or the dictates of language. It is the negation of the frontier that separates fiction from its theory.

The Nth landscape is the negation of the omnipresent and all powerful nature. Sounds great! 

You and Brion have described your collaborations over the years as the products of a "third mind." What's the source of this concept?


BURROUGHS:A book called Think and Grow Rich.
GYSIN: It says that when you put two minds together. . .
BURROUGHS: . . . there is always a third mind . . .
GYSIN : . . . a third and superior mind . . .
BURROUGHS: . . . as an unseen collaborator