Making ecological indicators management ready: Assessing the specificity, sensitivity, and threshold response of ecological indicators

Fu, Caihong; Xu, Yi; Bundy, Alida; Grüss, Arnaud; Coll, Marta; Heymans, Johanna J.; Fulton, Elizabeth A.; Shannon, Lynne J.; Halouani, Ghassen; Velez, Laure; Akoğlu, Ekin; Lynam, Christopher P.; Shin, Yunne-Jaï

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.05.055

Cited by 45 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Some studies have constructed resistance coefficients based on the perspective of biodiversity conservation (Balvanera Zhang et al 2017a). Some scholars also assigned resistance coefficients to grids units based on ecological sensitivity evaluation results (Fu et al 2019). However, these methods do not take into account the versatility of landscape and the carrying role of multiple ecological processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Construction of ecological security pattern based on the importance of ecosystem service functions and ecological sensitivity assessment: a case study in Fengxian County of Jiangsu Province, China

Jin

Wei

Wang

et al. 2020

Environ Dev Sustain

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The construction of ecological security pattern is one of the important ways to alleviate the contradiction between economic development and ecological protection, as well as the important contents of ecological civilization construction. How to scientifically construct the ecological security pattern of small-scale counties, and achieve sustainable economic development based on ecological environment protection, it has become an important proposition in regulating the ecological process effectively. Taking Fengxian County of China as an example, this paper selected the importance of ecosystem service functions and ecological sensitivity to evaluate the ecological importance and identify ecological sources. Furthermore, we constructed the ecological resistance surface by various landscape assignments and nighttime lighting modifications. Through a minimum cumulative resistance model, we obtained ecological corridors and finally constructed the ecological security pattern comprehensively combining with ecological resistance surface construction. Accordingly, we further clarified the specific control measures for ecological security barriers and regional functional zoning. This case study shows that the ecological security pattern is composed of ecological sources and corridors, where the former plays an important security role, and the latter ensures the continuity of ecological functions. In terms of the spatial layout, the ecological security barriers built based on ecological security pattern and regional zoning functions are away from the urban core development area. As for the spatial distribution, ecological sources of Fengxian County are mainly located in the central and southwestern areas, which is highly coincident with the main rivers and underground drinking water source area. Moreover, key corridors and main corridors with length of approximately 115.71 km and 26.22 km, respectively, formed ecological corridors of Fengxian County. They are concentrated in the western and southwestern regions of the county which is far away from the built-up areas with strong human disturbance. The results will provide scientific evidence for important ecological land protection and ecological space control at a small scale in underdeveloped and plain counties. In addition, it will enrich the theoretical framework and methodological system of ecological security pattern construction. To some extent, it also makes a reference for improving the regional Xingxing Jin and Luyao Wei contributed equally to the work. Extended author information available on the last page of the article X. Jin et al. 1 3 ecological environment carrying capacities and optimizing the ecological spatial structure in such kinds of underdeveloped small-scale counties.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Construction of ecological security pattern based on the importance of ecosystem service functions and ecological sensitivity assessment: a case study in Fengxian County of Jiangsu Province, China

Jin

Wei

Wang

et al. 2020

Environ Dev Sustain

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“…Implementing the Ecosystem Approach in the management of marine ecosystems is now facing a ‘second level’ challenge to become operational. After the first step of defining the optimal features for indicators (Jennings, ; Rochet & Trenkel, ) and developing efficient indicator frameworks (Fu et al, ; Tam, Link, Large, et al, ; Tam, Link, Rossberg, et al, ), it is now time to proceed towards an operational phase that adopts the use of system‐wide information. Reductionist views have already shown their limitations in terms of inability for maintaining or improving the ecological status of marine ecosystems; clearly many multisector ocean use management failures indicate that more ecosystem‐based approaches are necessary (Golden et al, ; Link, ; Walters, Christensen, Martell, & Kitchell, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within this operational context, emergent ecosystem properties are becoming quite promising, having demonstrated both stable and robust features through both space and time (Gunderson & Holling, ) and being quite effective in detecting significant state variations of complex systems (Pranovi et al, , ). In this context, it is crucial to understand which types of drivers an indicator is sensitive to and how robust it is in relation to external conditions and/or the system state (Fu et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative biomass curves describe past and present conditions of Large Marine Ecosystems

Pranovi

Libralato

Zucchetta

et al. 2019

Global Change Biology

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Implementing the Ecosystem Approach in marine ecosystems is moving from preliminary steps—dedicated to defining the optimal features for indicators and developing efficient indicator frameworks—towards an operational phase where multisector marine management decisions are executed using this information. Within this operational context, emergent ecosystem properties are becoming quite promising as they have been demonstrated to be globally widespread and repeatable, and to be quite effective in detecting significant state variations of complex systems. Biomass accumulation across TLs (CumB‐TL) combines two important emergent properties of an ecosystem (energy flow, in terms of transfer efficiency, and storage, expressed as biomass), both amenable to detecting rapid ecosystem change. However, for further application, it is crucial to understand which types of drivers an indicator is sensitive to and how robust it is in relation to modifications of the external conditions and/or the system state. Here we address some outstanding questions of these CumB‐TL curves related to their sensitivity to various drivers by carrying out a global scale assessment (using data from 62 LMEs) over six decades (1950–2010). We confirm the consistency of the S‐pattern across all the LMEs, independent from latitude, ecosystem, environmental conditions, and stress level. The dynamics of the curve shape showed a tendency to stretch (i.e. decrease of steepness), in the presence of external disturbance and conversely to increase in steepness and shift towards higher TL in the case of recovery from stressed conditions. Our results suggest the presence of three main types of ecosystem dynamics, those showing an almost continuous increase in ecological state over time, those showing a continuous decrease in ecological state over time, and finally those showing a mixed behaviour flipping between recovering and degrading phases. These robust patterns suggest that the CumB‐TL curve approach has some useful properties for use in further advancing the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach, allowing us to detect the state of a given marine ecosystem based on the dynamics of its curve shape, by using readily available time series data. The value of being able to identify conditions that might require management actions is quite high and, in many respects, represents the main objective in the context of an Ecosystem Approach, with large applications for detecting and responding to global changes in marine ecosystems.

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“…This is evident from the inclusion of ecological indicators in frameworks for a number of EBM programs including the Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (Levin et al, 2009(Levin et al, , 2014Walther and Mollmann, 2014) and the MSFD (Palialexis et al, 2014). Several international efforts have been made to determine a pragmatic set of ecological indicators to assess marine ecosystem status (Fulton et al, 2005;Tam et al, 2017b;Fu et al, 2019). While much of the development and selection of indicators has been done through time-series and pressure-response relationships with human or environmental pressures (Methratta and Link, 2006;Large et al, 2013), there is much to be gained from using end-to-end models to advance the uses of indicators for ecosystem management.…”

Section: Value Of Using End-to-end Models For Indicatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Better Together: The Uses of Ecological and Socio-Economic Indicators With End-to-End Models in Marine Ecosystem Based Management

2019

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Ecological and socioeconomic indicators are used as proxies for attributes of ecosystems and human communities, respectively. End-to-end models are used to predict how ecosystems will respond to alternative management actions and changing environmental conditions. Despite the importance of these two tools for Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM), there has been limited integration of ecological indicators directly into end-to-end models; the former are typically calculated post hoc with output from the latter. Here we explore how ecological indicators can be better incorporated into end-to-end models and examine the importance of this union with regards to cumulative impacts and indirect effects, setting management objectives, practical indicator selection, and applications to management. We conclude that the inclusion of ecological indicators in end-to-end models is not only feasible, but provides needed guidance on describing ecosystem status relative to strategic as well as tactical ecosystem-level management goals, and will escalate the implementation of EBM.

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Making ecological indicators management ready: Assessing the specificity, sensitivity, and threshold response of ecological indicators

Cited by 45 publications

References 61 publications

Construction of ecological security pattern based on the importance of ecosystem service functions and ecological sensitivity assessment: a case study in Fengxian County of Jiangsu Province, China

Construction of ecological security pattern based on the importance of ecosystem service functions and ecological sensitivity assessment: a case study in Fengxian County of Jiangsu Province, China

Cumulative biomass curves describe past and present conditions of Large Marine Ecosystems

Better Together: The Uses of Ecological and Socio-Economic Indicators With End-to-End Models in Marine Ecosystem Based Management

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