Introduction - Unprecedented Challenges in Ecological Research: Past and Present

Abstract

The focus of ecological research has been changing in fundamental ways as the need for humanity to address large-scale environmental perturbations and global crises increasingly places ecologists in the limelight. Ecologists are asked to explain and help mitigate effects from local to global scale issues, such as climate change, wetlands loss, hurricane devastation, deforestation, and land degradation. The traditional focus of ecology as ‘‘the study of the causes of patterns in nature’’ (e.g., Tilman 1987) has shifted to a new era in which ecological science must play a greatly expanded role in improving the human condition by addressing the sustainability and resilience of socio-ecological systems (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003, Palmer et al. 2004). In the twenty-first century, scientists studying ecological science are required not only to understand mechanisms of ecosystem change and develop new ecological theories but also to contribute to a future in which natural and human systems can coexist sustainably on the Earth (Carpenter and Turner 1998, Hassett et al. 2005). This unprecedented challenge demands that ecologists link science to planning, decisionand policy-making, forecasting ecosystem states, and evaluating ecosystem services and natural capital (Carpenter et al. 1998, Clark et al. 2001b). To realize these goals, ecologists must expand temporal and spatial scales of research, develop novel design approaches and analytical tools that meet the demands of this increasingly complex milieu, and provide education and training in using these tools. Ecological research began with observational field studies, then moved to experimentation, at which time the difficulty of isolating and controlling the variables that influence ecosystems became apparent (McIntosh 1985). In response, ecologists tried to reproduce systems on a smaller spatial scale using microcosms and mesocosms, where the influence of variables could be systematically isolated, controlled, and tested (Forbes 1887, Beyers 1963, Hutchinson