Human attempts to manage nature are at least as old as agriculture and possibly much older. By the time ecology was formalized as a science, applications and basic ecology were both on the agenda. Stephen Alfred Forbes (1844–1930), an influential American ecologist whose career spanned the origins and consolidation of ecology as a science, demonstrated the mix of practical and curiosity-driven science characteristic of the discipline. Forbes began his career as an economic entomologist, solving problems of pollination and pests that presage work on biological control reviewed by Murdoch in this volume (chapter VII.1). Then Forbes undertook studies of massive fish mortality in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin. He showed the connection of algae blooms and lake physics to fish kills and embarked on a remarkable research program into the ecology of lakes and rivers. His most famous paper, “the lake as a microcosm” (1887), foreshadowed the ecosystem concept as well as modern ideas of behavioral ecology and food web dynamics. As president of the Ecological Society of America and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Forbes championed the practical uses of basic ecological science for the betterment of humankind. Many other pioneering ecologists pursued research on practical problems of society along with fundamental science questions. Basic and applied ecology have always been intertwined.
From these beginnings, ecology for management has evolved in several dimensions. There has been a progression from single-species problems, such as management of a single resource population or a single pest, to problems of managing ecosystems and social–ecological systems. This does not mean that the single-species problems are no longer relevant—in some cases elegant solutions were found, and in other cases severe problems remain. Instead, the expansion of scope is a natural response to the discovery that larger contexts— ecological or social or both—must be addressed to make progress on pressing environmental problems.
Ecological management problems often begin with suppression of a single pest species or harvest of a single wild species of fish or game and progress to consideration of the ecosystem in which the focal species is embedded. Murdoch (chapter VII.1) shows how biological control of insect pests has expanded in scope to consider dynamics of interacting resource and consumer populations. Hilborn (chapter VII.2) describes how fisheries management coalesced around the idea of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of a single-species stock. Obvious shortcomings of MSY have led to an ecosystem management perspective considering dynamics of multiple interacting factors and the physical–chemical environment, posing a much more difficult management problem. Boyce, Merrill, and Sinclair (Chapter VII.3) point to a similar expansion of scope in wildlife management. In particular, they note the challenges posed by multiple states of wildlife populations and the ecosystem feedbacks that control them. Management of disease is a relatively new and expanding area of ecosystem management that links wildlife, ecosystem dynamics, and human health. Patz and Olson (Chapter VII.6) explain how changes in biodiversity and land use cascade through ecosystems to affect transmission, resurgence, or emergence of diseases that affect ecosystems and people.
Although management of living resources often began with a single-species perspective and then expanded in scope to consider the ecosystem, management problems of water or nutrients start with an ecosystem perspective. The scientific roots of these management perspectives lie in the geosciences, especially hydrology and geochemistry, rather than in ecology. Nonetheless, research on water and nutrients has long been a part of ecology, and the boundaries between ecology and the geosciences are not as sharp as they once were. Fresh water is frequently a limiting and nonsubstitutable resource for ecosystems and people, so ecosystem management at local, continental, or global scales often centers on water. Alcamo (chapter VII.4) summarizes the challenges of managing freshwater supply. Problems of water quality often go hand in hand with those of water quantity. Eutrophication, the excessive fertilization of fresh waters associated with toxicity, odor, deoxygenation, and fish kills, is a pervasive global problem. Management of eutrophication is addressed by Schindler (chapter VII.5). Increasing human populations and consumption affect the entire biosphere, and the complexities of managing the expanding human footprint are especially evident for Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Changing land use and land cover are critical factors in managing living resources, water, carbon, and associated ecosystem services. Challenges of managing land use are addressed by Foley et al. (chapter VII.7). Invasive species, reviewed by Chisholm in chapter VII.8, are a pervasive environmental problem that crosses traditional divisions of ecological science, from landscapes to ecosystems to communities and populations. Although globalized trade is a driver of species invasions, climate change, land use change, and nutrient mobilization all affect the vulnerability of ecosystems to invasion and the success of novel species once they are introduced.
The expanding scope of ecological management inevitably embraced humans as well as other components of ecosystems. All of the chapters of this section address the management of social–ecological systems. Three chapters focus in particular on the human dimensions of ecosystem management. One of the most important institutions for understanding social–ecological systems is the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics (http://www.beijer.kva.se/), a branch of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Economics and ecology share more than etymological roots (deriving from the Greek root “oikos” or “house”). They are also quantitative sciences that address dynamics of resources. Thus, ecological economics is a natural starting point for collaboration of ecology with the social sciences. Xepapadeas (chapter VII.9) reviews ecological economics, which has now become a key science for designing incentives and regulations for guiding sustainable behavior. Ostrom (chapter VII.10) synthesizes insights about institutions for governing the commons. This field is important because of the central role of institutions in creating the context in which ecosystem management occurs. A new process of interdisciplinary synthesis, the assessment, has emerged as an important policy tool for sustainability. Miller (chapter VII.11) reviews the status and trends of global environmental assessments.
Adaptive management is addressed by several chapters. Adaptive management originated in the 1960s when researchers associated with C. S. Holling explored a process of “learning by doing” to address problems of regional development. Adaptive management acknowledges the complexity and uncertainty of ecosystem management by starting from an assumption that management actions are not answers but hypotheses to be tested. In successful projects, creative interactions of stakeholders and scientists diversify the tools and approaches available for managing ecosystems. Since the 1990s the term adaptive comanagement, reflecting the importance of partnerships among stakeholder groups and experts from various disciplines, has come into vogue. More recently, the idea of “adaptive governance” has expanded the scope further to consider the institutional and social contexts that make adaptive management possible. These ideas are explored by Ostrom in her chapter on governance (chapter VII.10).
The concept of resilience is central to current thinking about adaptive management. Resilience was introduced by Holling to address the coexistence of persistence and change in living systems, including social–ecological systems. Resilience is a key idea in adaptive comanagement because of the crucial importance of open discussions about change. Which aspects of the past can or should be preserved? Which future conditions are attainable? Which are most desirable? And what pathways lead from the current conditions to the preferred future conditions? Questions such as these are fundamental for managing change in social–ecological systems, and resilience concepts have been elaborated to help guide such questions.
Studies of many social–ecological management projects showed that certain characteristic phases could be recognized. In a general way, these phases occurred in each project, even though the projects were conducted in different regions of the world, in different ecosystems, and in different cultures. In each of the different phases, particular approaches and tools are needed to evoke constructive change in a social–ecological system. Many failures of ecosystem management are explainable by use of the wrong approach for a given phase of the program. A model called the adaptive cycle links the phases. For any given social–ecological system, several adaptive cycles may be in play at different scales. A system of interacting adaptive cycles is called a panarchy. It seems possible to understand many changes in social–ecological systems using panarchy as a framework, and this idea is now being explored by many practitioners and scientists associated with the Resilience Alliance (http://www.resalliance.org) and Stockholm Resilience Centre (http://stockholmresilience.su.se.)
Four of the suggestions for Further Reading provide more information about resilience and related ideas. The article by Holling explains the adaptive cycle, its connection to resilience, and its origins as an organizing framework for adaptive management projects. Folke, Hahn, Olsson, and Norberg in their article provide a review of concepts of adaptive governance and the facilitation of adaptive ecosystem management. Walker and Salt, in Resilience Thinking, offer a straightforward account of the use of resilience, adaptive cycle, and panarchy concepts in pragmatic ecosystem management, using several case studies. Getting to Maybe, by Westley, Zimmerman, and Patton, presents a practitioner’s perspective on steering a project through the adaptive cycle.
The analysis of social–ecological systems, motivated by the desire to understand and manage the life support system of the planet, is a vast and rapidly changing field. Although this enterprise uses insights and tools from many older disciplines, many practitioners and scientists believe that it has transcended the original disciplines leading to emergence of a completely new and unique discipline called sustainability science. The diverse roots of sustainability science are traced in four books cited in Further Reading. Our Common Journey describes the elements of sustainability science that had emerged by the 1990s. The Drama of the Commons synthesizes insights from the behavioral sciences about management of shared resources. Global Change and the Earth System is a concise summary of the major global changes that confront ecosystem managers. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment or MA is the first global assessment of ecosystem services. The synthesis volume cited here is a brief overview of the MA; the four major reports downloadable from the Web site (http://www.MAweb.org) cover status and trends of ecosystem services, scenarios for future ecosystem services, policy response options, and examples of multiscale assessments of ecosystem services. In the present volume, Miller’s chapter (chapter VII.11) includes a discussion of the process for conducting the MA and other assessments.
From roots in ecology, the geosciences, and the social sciences, approaches for managing the biosphere have evolved into a vibrant collaboration of practitioners and researchers. The chapters in this volume present a sampler of some of the most important topics, emphasizing aspects most relevant to our overarching focus on ecology.
Folke, C., T. Hahn, P. Olsson, and J. Norberg. 2005. Adaptive governance of social–ecological systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30: 441–473.
Holling, C. S., 1986. The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: Local surprise and global change. In W. C. Clark and R. E. Munn, eds. Sustainable Development of the Biosphere. London: Cambridge University Press, 292–317.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press. Available on the internet at http://www.MAweb.org.
National Research Council. 1999. Our Common Journey. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
National Research Council. 2002. The Drama of the Commons. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Steffen, W., A. Anderson, P. D. Tyson, J. Jager, P. A. Matson, B. Moore III, F. Oldfield, K. Richardson, H. J. Schelln-huber, B. L. Turner II, and R. J. Wasson. 2004. Global Change and the Earth System. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Walker, B., and D. Salt. 2006. Resilience Thinking: Creating Space in a Shrinking World. Washington, DC: Island Press.
Westley, F., B. Zimmerman, and M. Q. Patten. 2006. Getting to Maybe. Toronto: Random House Canada.