Ecology of the Anthropocene signals hope for consciously managing the planetary ecosystem
| Autor: | Shelby W Loberg, Eville Gorham, Michael Wilson, Clarence Lehman |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Ecology (disciplines) Population Culture Population Dynamics Ecological and Environmental Phenomena Planets 01 natural sciences Sustainability Science 03 medical and health sciences demographic transition Anthropocene possibilist agenda Population growth Animals Humans anthropology Human Activities Sociocultural evolution Set (psychology) education 030304 developmental biology 0105 earth and related environmental sciences Probability 0303 health sciences education.field_of_study Multidisciplinary logistic and orthologistic growth Ecology Competitor analysis Biological Sciences sustainability Geography Fertility Predatory Behavior Sustainability Educational Status |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 0027-8424 |
| Popis: | Significance Human populations so dominate the ecology of the planet that geologists are describing this as the Anthropocene, “the time of humans.” Therefore, understanding the ecology of our time requires understanding our growth, which multiple models have sought to explain. Here we apply a unified model of ecology to understand and summarize historic and prehistoric human populations and provide predictions that concur with some of the more complicated current methods. They reveal that in our societies, and in those of our prehuman ancestors, changes involving cultural evolution have altered fundamental ecological mechanisms, producing three great ecological discontinuities that are successively related to tools, agriculture, and control of fertility. Understanding our ecological development thus far can help guide us into our future. Human populations have grown to such an extent that our species has become a dominant force on the planet, prompting geologists to begin applying the term Anthropocene to recognize the present moment. Many approaches seek to explain the past and future of human population growth, in the form of narratives and models. Some of the most influential models have parameters that cannot be precisely known but are estimated by expert opinion. Here we apply a unified model of ecology to provide a macroscale summary of the net effects of many microscale processes, using a minimal set of parameters that can be known. Our models match estimates of historic and prehistoric global human population numbers and provide predictions that correspond to some of the more complicated current models. In addition to fitting the data well they reveal that, amidst enormous complexity in our human and prehuman past, three key ecological discontinuities have occurred in turn: 1) becoming dominant competitors of large predators rather than their prey, 2) becoming mutualists with food species rather than acting as predators upon them, and 3) changing from a regime of uncontrolled population growth to one of controlled fertility instead. All three processes have been interlinked with cultural evolution and all three ushered in developments of the Anthropocene. Understanding the trajectories that have delivered us to this stage can help guide prudent paths into the future. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|