What is the compelling question or challenge?
How can we better understand, predict, manage and design ecosystems of the future by taking a highly interdisciplinary, collaborative and convergent approach across science and engineering fields?
What do we know now about this Big Idea and what are the key research questions we need to address?
The rate and magnitude of ecosystem change is moving into an unprecedented state space, while the human population continues to grow. Traditional concepts of ecosystem management, conservation and restoration are falling short in this new era of the Anthropocene, in part because they rely on disciplinary norms and a focus on historical, “pristine” systems as the gold standard. The future of ecosystem science and management will need to embrace and work to better engineer and design ecosystems; in particular, by fundamentally rethinking how we define and measure success. The ideas of ecological engineering and novel ecosystems are not new. “Ecological engineering” was coined in the 1960s to describe “environmental manipulation by man using small amounts of supplementary energy to control systems in which the main energy drivers are still coming from natural sources” (Odum et al. 1963). The definition has evolved over time, with the emphasis shifting to combining ecosystem function with human needs. Similarly, since its first use by Chapin and Starfield (1997), the concept of the “novel ecosystem” has gained traction among ecologists who wish to describe ecosystems so changed by human disturbance that they have no historical analog. And yet, these potentially radical concepts have led to relatively mundane scientific inquiry, primarily within the field of restoration ecology, and unimaginative management and restoration approaches. Co-opting and reshaping these concepts with an infusion of research that combines paradigms, approaches, and theories from a broader array of scientific and engineering disciplines - and intentionally blurs the boundaries between the natural and built environment - is a Big Idea that could change our ability to sustainably inhabit the planet, benefitting both nature and people.
The convergence research required for this Big Idea to succeed must draw from advances in ecology, engineering, physics, earth science, sociology, psychology, economics, geography, computer science, mathematics, and systems thinking, with no boundaries placed on what constitutes a “natural ecosystem” and no judgement on unrecognizable “designed” ecosystems. The key research questions that we need to address to advance this idea include:
- What can we learn about the functioning of ecosystems, their ability to provide services to people, and their likely future states, when drawing on a broader range of disciplinary expertise to understand ecosystem dynamics?
- Can a natural ecosystem and its functioning be broken down into component pieces from an engineering perspective, allowing us to think about which components need to be preserved in their current or historical state, and which components should be redesigned to work better for the future?
- Can we design and maintain ecosystems that will provide more services in the climate of tomorrow?
- How can we better blend the built environment with nature to achieve human well-being and a sustainable earth system?
- Retrospectively relooking at our current state of food and energy production systems from a fresh perspective and convergent approach, what does their development suggest, both positively and negatively, about avenues of ecosystem management?
- What are the cultural, social, and psychological barriers to envisioning out-of-the-box designed ecosystems that are better adapted to the future?
- Can we design and engineer ecosystems to be adaptively dynamic rather than simply resilient to environmental change, and will that improve the flow of ecosystem services?
- What are the consequences for biodiversity of a more interventionist and aggressive approach to ecosystem management?
- Do historical states provide particular services (or combinations of services) that are difficult to replicate in designed ecosystems that lack equivalent evolutionary history?
Why does it matter? What scientific discoveries, innovations, and desired societal outcomes might result from investment in this area?
Conservation biology has typically focused on preservation of the “pristine” state and mitigating human impacts. When boiled down to a singular goal, conservation biology is inherently trying to assign value to nature. However, this value is based on historical evidence rather than accepting that a human dominated system may also have equal or potentially greater worth. For example, one main avenue of conservation, restoration ecology, has focused on trying to turn back the clock. However, with climate change and a population of over 7 billion people and growing, these approaches are no longer likely to be successful or sufficient to prevent ecological and societal catastrophe. Some have argued we need to double down, and restore and protect even more of Earth’s area (Wilson 2016). While idealistic, it is not realistic on many scales, the least of which is actual physical space. What if instead, we leverage advancements in ecology, engineering, sociology, economics, geography and systems thinking and invest in convergence research into how to maintain ecosystem services and functions under a new paradigm of ecosystem management that more fully embraces ecosystem engineering and designed ecosystems.
Discovery outcomes
- Understanding how ecosystems work from an engineering perspective, taking apart their component parts and reassembling them in new ways
- Understanding the incompatibilities between societal norms, human behavior and sustainability and how they can be overcome
- Predicting how ecosystems will change in the future, even when future conditions are unlike conditions of the recent past
- Identifying the most robust components and, conversely, the fragile points of natural ecosystems
Innovation outcomes
- Ability to construct and reconstruct, to design and redesign, natural ecosystems that can support a growing human population
- Ability to construct sustainable ecosystems that would function in extremely unusual contexts (enclosed systems in harsh environments, potentially including space or other planets)
- Ability to create large-scale systems that coexists with one another, accounting for waste management, supplies of food, energy, and water, and human health
Societal Outcomes
- Discover unexpected ways to balance the needs of natural ecosystems with those of people, where previously the two felt incompatible
- Catalyze collaboration between hard and soft sciences and between analytical and subjective research
- Motivate the brightest minds to work on sustainability science, a field vital to the continuation of the human species and our planet
If we invest in this area, what would success look like?
The beauty of this Big Idea is that success can have many faces. Ecosystems could and should be studied at scales from local to continental/basin to global and even beyond (e.g., terraforming on Mars). All levels of preservation, restoration, alteration, engineering and design of ecosystems are captured by this Big Idea. Critically, we must expand our scientific study of natural ecosystems from a purely ecological understanding to a mechanical and mechanistic understanding. We hope this will then lead to new insights and catalyze ideas that will simultaneously benefit people and nature. Success would be answering some of the key questions currently facing the globe resulting in the following:
- Creating a sustainable way to feed the planet that is not tied to the current trajectory of agriculture and aquaculture production
- Sustainably fueling the planet in an engineered climate of our creation
- Crafting a supportable atmosphere for people to live in outer space.
- Engineering and fabricating ecosystems that minimize waste at all levels.
- Creating/engineering no-analog ecosystems that will survive the climate and human impacts of the present and the future.
- Construct large-scale systems where humans and the environmental benefit from one another, thus achieving a harmonious ecosystem.
Further, by bringing in experts in all field of STEM and beyond, we may gain knowledge about problems we are currently facing or anticipating, in addition to problems that have yet to be understood or originated. A huge success would be the ability to pinpoint problems that current biologists/ecologists have yet to even consider through the fresh perspective of different disciplines.
Why is this the right time to invest in this area?
With the current and future impending effects of the Anthropocene (e.g., climate change, natural resources shortages), we will continue to see an increasing number of ecosystems experiencing shifts in the services and functions they are able to provide. By investing in this area sooner rather than later, we can begin to predict and mitigate these shifts, retaining not only ecological and biological function but also maintaining the services that humans utilize and rely upon. We are at point in time where we have the confluence of large scale issues of changing/shifting ecosystems and the technology available to address these issues. With modern computing, including the advent of the big data revolution, we have the capability to produce powerful predictive models to aid our decision-making process at all levels. Further, by expanding these issues past the biological field and creating a space for convergence science, it will offer new outlooks in order to solve these problems.
References
Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-earth: Our planet's fight for life.
CHAPIN, F.S. & STARFIELD, A.M. Climatic Change (1997) 35: 449. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005337705025
Odum, E. P. (1963). Ecology. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Show MoreShow Less