HR: 14:25h
AN: B43H-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Anthropogenic Biomes: A Framework for Earth Science and Ecology in the 21st Century
AU: * Ellis, E C
EM: ece@umbc.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Dept. of Geography & Environmental Systems UMBC 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltmore, MD 21250, United States
AU: Ramankutty, N
EM: navin.ramankutty@mcgill.ca
AF: McGill University, Department of Geography & Earth System Science Program McGill University 627 Burnside Hall, 805 Sherbrooke Street W., Montreal, QC H3A 2K6, Canada
AB: Humans have fundamentally altered global patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Surprisingly, existing systems for representing these global patterns, including biome classifications, either ignore humans altogether, or simplify human influence into at most 4 categories. Here we present the first characterization of the terrestrial biomes based on global patterns of sustained direct human interaction with ecosystems. Eighteen "anthropogenic biomes" were identified through empirical analysis of global population, land use and land cover. More than three quarters of Earth's ice-free land showed evidence of alteration by human residence and land use, with less than a quarter remaining as wildlands, supporting just 11% of terrestrial net primary production. Anthropogenic biomes offer a new way forward in developing models and investigations of the terrestrial biosphere that integrate human and ecological systems, going beyond the conventional view of these as a single dimension of human disturbance, impact or domination, and moving towards an operational view of humans as shapers of ecosystem structure and function. This is a critical framework for future efforts to model and mediate anthropogenic changes in the terrestrial biosphere, as most of "nature" may now be considered as being embedded within anthropogenic mosaics of land use and land cover. It is our hope that wide availability of an anthropogenic biome system will encourage a richer view of human/ecosystem interactions across the terrestrial biosphere and that this will in turn lead to improved models and investigations of ecosystem processes and their changes at global and regional scales.
UR: http://www.ecotope.org/projects/biomes.htm
DE: 0414 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0793, 1615, 4805, 4912)
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 1622 Earth system modeling (1225)
DE: 1630 Impacts of global change (1225)
DE: 1632 Land cover change
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting