Breakdown Of Ecosystems Research Articles

History repeating. The plague of 1630 in Milan and the COVID-19 pandemia.

In western democracies, individual behaviour will be crucial to control the spread of COVID-19, as well as government actions [1] that unfortunately, except China, South Korea and Italy, followed by others, seems to be generally unconvinced and, speculatively, late. Indeed human history has been marked by epidemics/pandemics which have affected, more or less, large geographical areas [2]. Italy, as well as the rest of Europe, has often been affected by these phenomena and, Lombardy, due to his position, was, as today by COVID-19, severely stroked in Italy that is, after China, the second most affected country [3]. This is also linked to the position of Lombardy and its capital, Milan, but this is beyond this brief comment. There are several differences between the past plagues and the actual COVID-19 pandemic and these must be sought in the increased ability to transmit diseases at-distance through the mobility of humans and goods [4], and in the catastrophic consequences of the breakdown of ecosystems, as told, a few years ago, by David Quammen in the book Spillover [5].

A Role for Legislators

are living in a world that is facing multiple global challenges: the economic downturn, climate change, energy security, poverty, and ecosystem breakdown. Each of these challenges requires an unprecedented political response, a daunting prospect when viewed together. Our main difficulty is not that these challenges are insoluble--they are not. Instead, it is the fact that we are facing these modern-day challenges while using institutional frameworks and governmental structures that were designed for a post-World War II equilibrium. The existing international bodies responsible for tackling these current challenges are separate, disparate, and not sufficiently joined up. have the Group of 20 (G-20), the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank for the financial crisis; the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), G8, and Major Economies Forum for climate change; the International Energy Agency (IEA), and G8 for energy security; the UN Development Programme and World Bank for poverty; and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity for ecosystems. Each of these organizations is doing important work, but many are working with considerable constraint on issues that require a unified policy response. As a result, we have disconnected institutions responding to an interconnected An Interconnected World The interconnections between countries, regions, economies, and cultures are multiplying. Within national governments, the interconnections between policies across portfolios of energy, environment, transport, security, and foreign policy are increasing. Indeed, the recent financial crisis is a perfect illustration, beginning with the irresponsible lending of money to private homeowners in the United States and leading to a near global financial meltdown. This inter-connectedness has resulted in increased unemployment, increased national debt, reduced trade, and exacerbated poverty, which have reduced the ambition to tackle climate change. The current crisis has shown us, quite clearly, how a national or regional economic downturn can quickly and easily turn global and demand policy responses across a range of geographical and ministerial disciplines. serves as a warning that responses to the biggest global environmental challenges such as climate change or ecosystem loss cannot be tackled by environment ministers in isolation, but instead require enlightened policy interventions across the full range of ministerial portfolios from energy to economics and from finance to transport. Fundamentally, we require continued political leadership from the top of government, without which there is little hope of achieving meaningful solutions. Global Responses Meeting global challenges successfully will require unprecedented global coordination across the major economies. National and regional action is part of the solution, but to be successful, the right institutions and global governance structures will be needed in combination with political leadership from the major economies. have limped along over the past twenty to thirty years with institutions designed for a postwar world that are slow to respond and increasingly out of alignment with the challenges of the day. In parallel, on global governance, the G8 group of industrialized countries is increasingly being questioned as the political constellation best placed to deal with global issues. The debate around institutions and global governance is not new, but has been given political impetus by the comments of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who, when referring to the G-20 summit in Washington, DC, in 2008, said: We are talking about the G20 because the G8 doesn't have any more reason to exist; emerging economies have to be taken into consideration in today's globalised world. (1) Many observers see the move away from the G8 and toward the G-20 as inevitable. As the former UK G8 Sherpa to Tony Blair in 2005 and 2006, Lord Michael Jay, who was also the architect of the Glen-eagles G8 summit, said: It is hugely significant that at a time of global financial crisis it was the G20 that met in Washington and not the G8. …

퍼지 플로킹 기반의 보이드 행동 모델링

컴퓨터 게임은 보이드들의 군집 행동 모델링을 위하여 플로킹이라는 지능적인 기법을 사용하고 있다. 플로킹은 약간의 컴퓨터 자원만을 이용하여 조류나 물고기와 같은 예측할 수 없는 형태의 군집 행동 패턴을 자연스럽게 모델링 할 수 있다. 단 논문에서 우리는 사실적인 수중 생태계 군집 행동 모델링을 위하여, 포식자 및 먹이로 구성되는 생태계를 구현하였다. 또한 퍼지 논리를 생태계 요소들의 본능적인 욕망을 구현하기 위하여 적용하였다 그 결과 본 모델은 생태계의 파괴를 극복하고, 자연스럽게 생태계 행동을 모델링 할 수 있다는 것을 확인하였다. Computer games use an intelligent method called flocking for boids' group behavioral modeling. Flocking can naturally model group behavioral patterns of unpredictable forms such as birds and fishes using some computer resource. In this paper, we implemented an ecosystem which is composed of predator and prey for group behavioral modeling of real underwater ecosystem. Also fuzzy logic is applied to implement instinct desire of ecosystem elements. As the result, we confirmed that the model can overcome breakdown of ecosystem and model naturally ecosystem behavior.

The Health of Ecology and the Ecology of Health

The health of ecology refers to ecosystem health—an extension of the concept of health to the ecosystem level. Health is reflected in the absence of distress syndrome, and by productivity, organization and resilience that characterize sustainability in the Earth's ecosystems. Transformation of ecosystems under stress from healthy to pathological conditions is often irreversible, even when the initial stress factors are removed. The ecology of health refers to the fact that human health is influenced by ecological conditions. The breakdown of ecosystems under stress are often conducive to an increase in human pathogens, recycling toxic substances, reduced yields and compromised food supplies, scarcity of potable water, and air pollution, all of which increases human health vulnerability. Addressing human health issues from an ecological perspective takes account of the social, ecological, and biophysical determinants. This opens the door to potential interventions “upstream”, in order to prevent illness, in addition to treating the disease once the malady has occurred.

On the transformation from healthy to degraded aquatic ecosystems

Aquatic ecosystems that have become degraded under stress show similarities both in the signs of pathology and in the mechanisms that promote degradation. A review of the transformations in several aquatic systems, including the Laurentian Great Lakes (Canada/US), the Baltic Sea (Finland) and Lake Chapala (Mexico) reveals signs of ‘ecosystem distress’, including alterations in primary and secondary productivity, nutrient cycling, species diversity and biotic composition. A shift from a predominantly vertical to horizontal nutrient spiraling characterizes all three aquatic ecosystems, as does a reduction in the abundance of the larger (high-valued) fish stocks. Once the health of robust systems begins to decline, mechanisms are called into play that tend to perpetuate the ecosystem breakdown. The process may be difficult to reverse, even when sources of initial stress are removed.

On the transformation from healthy to degraded aquatic ecosystems

Abstract Aquatic ecosystems that have become degraded under stress show similarities both in the signs of pathology and in the mechanisms that promote degradation. A review of the transformations in several aquatic systems, including the Laurentian Great Lakes (Canada/US), the Baltic Sea (Finland) and Lake Chapala (Mexico) reveals signs of ‘ecosystem distress’, including alterations in primary and secondary productivity, nutrient cycling, species diversity and biotic composition. A shift from a predominantly vertical to horizontal nutrient spiraling characterizes all three aquatic ecosystems, as does a reduction in the abundance of the larger (high-valued) fish stocks. Once the health of robust systems begins to decline, mechanisms are called into play that tend to perpetuate the ecosystem breakdown. The process may be difficult to reverse, even when sources of initial stress are removed.

A framework for identifying and classifyingecosystem dysfunctions

Even though there is a global proliferation of cases of ecosystem breakdown under stress, little attention has been given to the development of practical and efficient means for cross-referencing ‘similar cases’. It seems essential that a more systematic approach be adopted for the efficient analysis of options in environmental management. This paper presents a frame work for identifying ecosystem dysfunctions and proposes a classification based on stresses and responses, a procedure which does not require a mechanistic knowledge of the causal pathways that lead to environmental degradation. By examining the techniques used in classifying disorders in human medicine, insight is derived, allowing one to treat the ecosystem as a patient. All attempts at distinguishing between pathological and natural response, whether in human or ecosystem medicine, must ultimately be based on context; the significance of a particular condition and appropriate remedial actions must always be viewed in relation to a specific patient.

Challenges in the Detection and Diagnosis of Pathological Change in Aquatic Ecosystems

There are a number of challenges in developing better tools for the detection and diagnosis of pathological change in ecosystems. The use of indicators can be improved by adopting a pluralistic approach, rather than relying on any one type of measure of ecosystem health. This approach would best meet the need for three functions that indicators should serve in the context of ecosystem health: (1) utility in diagnosis of pathological changes in ecosystems; (2) utility as an early warning indicator of ecosystem breakdown; and (3) utility in reflecting ecosystem integrity. Understanding ecosystem breakdown and rehabilitation processes is enhanced by correlating, over space and time, the appearance of symptoms of pathological change with changes in stress loadings. Such analyses, as illustrated by a case study of Kyrönjoki estuary (Baltic Sea), are complex owing to both discontinuities in the response of ecosystems to stress, and lags between the onset of stress and ecosystem response. As the practice of “ecosystem medicine” evolves, much is to be gained by shifting the emphasis from “curative” to “preventive” aspects. Here a “salutogenic” approach, one that is focused on understanding the origins of health and mechanisms that promote “healthiness” might find ready applications. Such an approach would suggest bolstering ecosystem coping responses to stress, thereby promoting greater immunity to the negative impacts of cultural disturbance.

Larval ecology, life history strategies, and patterns of extinction and survivorship among Ordovician trilobites

Differences in the larval ecology of Ordovician trilobites directly influenced the outcome of the Ashgill extinction (latest Ordovician) and indirectly governed the pattern of evolution in post-Ordovician trilobites. Larval ecology also affected survivorship patterns within the Ordovician, particularly between the Llandeilo and the Caradoc stages. All taxa with pelagic adults became extinct by the end of the Ordovician. Similarly, trilobites with entirely planktonic larvae had all but disappeared by the end of the Ordovician. Although suffering a significant loss in diversity, taxa with benthic larvae provided the ancestral stock for the majority of post-Ordovician lineages. Trilobites with a two-stage protaspid period (single planktonic followed by benthic larvae) suffered least during the Ashgill extinction, giving rise to approximately 23% of the new genera appearing in the early Silurian.Patterns of extinction/survivorship among trilobite taxa with different developmental strategies indicate that the so-called Ashgill extinction was most likely the result of a composite phenomenon, including environmental perturbations, ecosystem breakdown and biogeographic restriction, and was not the consequence of a single catastrophic event (e.g., bolide collision). Indeed, our results are consistent with extinction models which invoke periodic global cooling and sea level regression associated with glaciation. Taxa with planktonic larvae first suffered a marked decline in diversity between the Llandeilo and the Caradoc (end of Middle Ordovician), coincident with the onset of the Ordovician-Silurian glaciation. During this time interval, the paleogeographic ranges of most surviving genera with solely planktonic larvae were severely constricted to lower latitude paleobiogeographic provinces. During the Ashgill (Rawtheyan to Hirnantian), climatic and sea level fluctuations were most extreme because of continued and more extensive glaciation. At this time, when extinctions were particularly severe, there was also a significant effect upon the survivorship of taxa with benthic larvae.Our results indicate that the proportion of the life cycle spent in the water column, dependent upon a planktonic food source, was a critical factor in the survivorship of trilobite taxa during Middle to Late Ordovician time. Consequently, differences in life history patterns predisposed individual taxa to survival or extinction.

Ecosystem Behavior Under Stress

The behavior of ecosystems under stress can be shown to be analogous to Selye's characterization (1973, 1974) of the response of higher organisms to stress. The ecosystem-level distress syndrome is manifest through changes in nutrient cycling, productivity, the size of dominant species, species diversity, and a shift in species dominance to opportunistic shorter-lived forms. These symptoms of ecosystem dysfunction are common in both terrestrial and aquatic systems under various stress impacts including harvesting, physical restructuring, pollutant discharges, introductions of exotic species, and extreme natural events (such as disastrous storms or volcanic activity). The progression of appearance of symptoms under intensifying stress levels may be interrupted temporarily as ecosystem homeostasis and homeorhetic mechanisms intercede. Inability to cope leads to further dysfunctions and, perhaps, to irreversible ecosystem breakdown.