Systemic Management 8

Sustainable human interactions with ecosystems and the biosphere, part 8

A BOOK BY CHARLES W. FOWLER

Sustainable human interactions with ecosystems and the biosphere, part 8

Body size

Over 99% (probably over 99.9%) of all species fall within the lower 0.1% of the known size range. Viruses, for example, are 24 orders of magnitude smaller than blue whales and about 21 orders of magnitude smaller than humans…. Nearly all known species are smaller than humans.

Complexity and limitations preclude complete exhaustively detailed explanation and understanding of patterns — a full explanation is impossible. From a systemic point of view, patterns observed in nature are understood as products of all of the factors involved in their origin, including natural selection at all levels. This involves the entire suite of factors that make up the complexity of reality; patters are emergent from this reality. This is true whether or not we can identify, study, name, or assign their relative importance to all contributing factors.

The higher risk of extinction among larger bodied species emphasizes the importance of asking management question in such a way that body size is taken into account (especially owing to the fact that we humans are large bodied)…. With an adult body mass of approximately 68 kg, what is a sustainable consumption rate of resources from the biosphere for species of that size?

Trophic level

Within ecosystems, primary consumers tend to outnumber primary producers and secondary consumers; the number of species tends to drop on either side of the trophic level represented by primary consumers.

So in a kelp forest (primary producer) there are more primary consumers dependent on the kelp with fewer secondary consumers. You can’t just remove kelp (by overharvesting) from an ecosystem.

There are at least 36 species for which the northern fur seal serves as a resource; only about three species are predators while there are 16 species of bacteria that occur internally and 17 species of parasites.

Ecosystems (including the fact that ecosystems interact among themselves), involves too much complexity to avoid the unintended consequences of attempts to control them. When we observe lack of health in an ecosystem (e.g., an ecosystem that shows a trait outside the normal range of natural variation among ecosystems) we can ask management questions regarding the various ways we (humans) might be contributing. If we are involved in abnormal influence to our relationships with the biosphere, any ecosystems, or their components, we can then relieve those systems of the anthropogenic problem(s) as our contribution to solving any observed problems.

Solutions to anthropogenic problems involve contracting human demands on nature’s recourses, and not attempting to intervene by managing the system (we have to manage/limit ourselves).

Summary

Management is human action so as to retain its intransitive quality, as…. In this chapter we have seen that there are pattern among species representing ecosystem structure and function reflective of the complexity we want to account for in establishing goals for management. We can measure the abnormal among species, based on these patterns, and we can measure the abnormal among ecosystems in comparing patterns. When humans are the abnormal among species, there is basis for management action, especially when it involves our interactions and relationships with other species, ecosystems, or the biosphere. With this foundation for management, it is clear that the best available scientific information for setting goals in management are the patterns that match management questions so that action can be taken to avoid the abnormal. The science that best serves management, then, is research that brings information about those patterns to managers and other stakeholders. These are people — people involved in asking the management questions. The questions they ask define the kind of information patterns must contain. In this chapter, the asking of such questions was introduced.

Science does more than discover and characterize patterns, however; it also involves explanation. This aspect of science develops an understanding of some of the elements of emergence behind patterns. More holistically, this aspect of science leads to the understanding that when patterns consonant with management questions are used to guide management, the elements of emergence (of reality, Fig 1.4) are taken into account…. Only in the last several decades have scientists paid much attention to the influence of selective extinction and speciation in the formation of macroecological patterns — especially in preventing the accumulation of examples of species beyond the extremes revealed by parrterns. In conventional management, extinction and speciation are largely ignored, especially insofar as they are selective; when they are considered it is through the error prone processes of conventional management.

List of articles in this book review series: Systemic Management.