Functional Ecosystems and Biodiversity Buzzwords

Paul Goldstein argues in this refreshing paper that conservationists and land managers are getting too far away from knowledge of natural history, and thus, may not be reaching their stated goals. He argues that one of the main issues with having faulty management stems from definitions which are too vague, or lack species specific information. He discusses the faults with creating boundaries or managing off of ecosystem processes and functions, without looking at the species at hand.

In the discussion of ecosystem management he points out that the older idea of trying to save most area possible by using one species (e.g. grizzly bear) does not take into account micro or unique habitats which may be important but are not within the range of the target species. From this, he then goes on to discuss, what is ‘ecosystem management anyway’? The definition of this has been lost in debate and become more and more generalized, leading to the term being used in almost any way possible. For example, he calls out the insane idea of a Mass. Politian including ATVs in plans to manage a beach area! He also discusses how even now, this “ecosystem management” often ends up being single species management. He defines ecosystem management as including the following 3 ideas: 1) to protect biological diversity, one must safeguard the context in which ecological and evolutionary processes persist. 2) simple species richness is not a sufficient gauge of management success. And 3) Management must be planned and conducted for the long term.

He then goes on to discuss what seems to be a subject he feels quite passionate about (and rightfully so, as it is his profession), the idea of removing all life history knowledge and simply characterizing communities through abstract, theoretical numbers (e.g. diversity, rank abundance). He points out the obvious example of a community appearing “healthy” and a goal being met based on the dominance of a single invasive species increase a sites abundance.

The next section discusses managing for emerging properties in structure and function. There are many faults in this approach, for example, strictly managing for fire through prescribed burns, though it may sound like a good idea, could result in elimination of the most rare species, and a homogenous landscape. Managing for function also has many faults, and here, his paper ties in with Naeem’s. He demonstrates how managers have used ecological redundancy to ignore species ID and just manage for function. As we learned from Naeem, redundancy, is important and thus, species should be considered.

Conservation biology and land management should not be characterized by “buzzwords” and lack of defined goals. In order to be successful, managers must create defined goals which account for species life histories in the area or habitat which is being conserved. Although knowing each organism in each habitat is likely not feasible, in the least, a good understanding of species at hand will greatly increase the success of efforts.

Now regarding out class discussion – Is Dr. Goldstein just a “bug counter” who is against models and theoretical progress? No, he is simply reminding us all of the dangers of drifting too far from the base of what we want to preserve. Although management would likely never be feasible without the use of generalized ideas, a mixture of both models/theory/ and natural history will likely give us the best results.