Emerging landscape novelty
2023 Webinar #2
Original Air Date:
Thursday, Feb 9, 2023
Presenters
Eric Higgs, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria; and
Jeanine Rhemtulla, Associate Professor, Dept. of Forest & Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia
The development of the concept of novel ecosystems and the more general concept of ecological novelty acknowledge that non-analogue ecosystems are forming because of shifts in composition, pattern, and function. The ecosystem scale has received the most attention, but recent work suggests novelty occurs at a landscape level and is not simply a scaled up version of novel ecosystems. We examine whether resilience is the most effective concept to cope with increasing novelty. After all, restoration ecologists spend much of their time fighting against highly resilient “stuck” ecosystems. Instead, we explore whether adaptive capacity is better suited to the task of supporting rapidly changing ecosystems and dependent human relationships.
Feature Resources
Future Ecologies podcast
