Novel ecosystems in the Anthropocene: a revision of the novel ecosystem concept for pragmatic applications
By N. Morse, P. Pellissier, Elisabeth N. Cianciola, R. Brereton, Marleigh M. Sullivan, Nicholas K. Shonka, T. B. Wheeler, William H. McDowell. 2014
214 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Ecologists have developed terminology to distinguish ecosystems based on the degree of human alteration. To this end, ecosystems can be characterized as "novel ecosystems," "impacted ecosystems," or "designed ecosystems," depending on the role of human management in ecosystem development and effects on ecosystem properties. Properly classifying an ecosystem as novel, impacted, or designed has critical implications for its conservation and management, but a broadly applicable definition for a "novel ecosystem" does not exist. We have provided a formal definition of "novel ecosystem" that facilitates its use in practical applications and have described four characteristics of such an ecosystem. A novel ecosystem can be identified by its origins rooted in human agency, the ecological thresholds it has crossed, a significantly altered species composition, and a capacity to sustain itself. Ecosystem classification in the literature has been inconsistent. We have illustrated the application of our definition using multiple case studies representing impacted, designed, and novel ecosystems.
Subfields: Ecological Modeling, General Health Professions, Global and Planetary Change
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d34f48b58ea348a23f11ac97f3185d149ded9b9f
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In Ecological Modeling
In Global and Planetary Change
Citations in the corpus
- Advances in restoration ecology: rising to the challenges of the coming decades (2015, background): “This debate remains ongoing, and the ideas are being expanded and refined (Morse et al. 2014; Larson, v www.esajournals.org 6 August 2015 v Volume 6(8) v Article 131 in press) and interpreted in the context of case studies across a wide range of ecosystems (Zedler et al. 2012, Graham et al. 2014,…”
- Does public awareness increase support for invasive species management? Promising evidence across taxa and landscape types (2017, background): “2006; Kowarik 2011), which are characterized by a change in the original environmental conditions and species composition (Morse et al. 2014).”