Ecosystem health and management: A culmination of ecosystem ecology

Abstract

Scientific fields begin with initial conjectures that lead to testable hypotheses, which in turn develop into a theoretical framework. That framework becomes the foundation on which an edifice of practical applications can be raised. The search for those factors that control the environmental physiology of species led to the enunciation of the ecosystem concept by Arthur Tansley in 1938. Tansley's initial publication of the term “ecosystem” and its definition as, all of the components, living and non-living, interacting to form a “system, in the sense of a physicist” brought attention to the need not only to investigate biological components and their physical and chemical environment per se, but also to consider explicitly the set of interactions and interplay among them.Tansley's conjecture of an “ecosystem” was implicitly a call to look beyond the boxes and individual arrows in a traditional ecological box-and-arrow view of community interactions, and to investigate explicitly the consequences of the nexus of interactions, much as a physicist or engineer would investigate the homeostatic stability and energy efficiency of an electrical network. Ecosystem ecology as a field was born with the seminal works of Raymond Lindeman and G. E. Hutchinson on trophic dynamics in 1942, and the publication of the textbook, Fundamentals of Ecology, by Eugene P. Odum and his brother Howard in 1953. It was this text that first viewed the ecosystem as “the basic functional unit of ecology.” The ecosystem then was an academic concept in search of practical meaning. Just as molecular biology led to significant improvements in human health and wellbeing, so too, could the advances in ecosystem ecology lead to significant advances in the health and management of ecosystems.Contemporary ecosystem ecology now recognizes “the ecosystem” as the milieu in which humans are inextricably immersed. Human social, political and economic activities are now recognized as important parts of ecosystems and need to be considered explicitly in the design and investigation of ecosystem models. Human potential for physical, social and economic success is directly tied to the efficiency and quality of ecosystem services, just as the efficiency and quality of ecosystem services is dependent on human valuation, restoration, and sustenance of those ecosystem attributes and services.When human quality of life is degraded, either through decline in health or decline in economic conditions, humans are able and willing to alter their behavior to restore lost environmental qualities and ecosystem services. That is, the important link in the inclusion of human activities in ecosystem considerations is the valuation that humans place on ecosystem services—a valuation that leads to altered behavior. It is that behavior that we call “ecosystem management.”Nowhere is this in greater evidence than in the Laurentian Great Lakes ecosystem. These lakes support a wealth of activities that support and sustain human activity: they are a major source of drinking water to cities around the lakes, they support the largest freshwater commercial fishery in the world, and allow commercial marine traffic to connect the inland cities of Duluth, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto with major cities around the globe, as well as supporting a multi-billion dollar recreational industry. With the degradation of water quality in the 1970s, the usefulness of the lakes as a drinking water source and the viability of the freshwater fishery were severely threatened. By adopting an ecosystem based management plan, largely through the efforts of the Canadian ecosystem ecologist, Henry Regier, the lakes were restored and the economic and social benefits accrued greatly exceeded the costs of implementing phosphorus abatement strategies. Since that time the International Joint Commission, a binational organization supported by the governments both north and south of the border separating Canada and the United States, has led in conducting ongoing studies of the health of these Great Lakes that lead to practical solutions to restore and sustain ecosystem health. Recently, the establishment of the Great Lakes Compact, a binational agreement to retain water in the Great Lakes Basin, has assured that these watershed ecosystems will remain important sources of readily available, high quality water in abundance.The Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society (AEHMS), perhaps more than any other science-based society, has focused on providing venues of Great Lakes of the World meetings and publications of the periodical, as well as numerous monographs for discussion and presentation of critical research devoted to the definition and determination of “ecosystem health” and the management of ecosystems globally. Congratulations to AEHMS for a job well begun.