Ecosystem health

Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem. Ecosystem condition can vary as a result of fire, flooding, drought, extinctions, invasive species, climate change, mining, overexploitation in fishing, farming or logging, chemical spills, and a host of other reasons. There is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem, rather the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary depending upon which health metrics are employed in judging it and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment. Advocates of the health metaphor argue for its simplicity as a communication tool. 'Policy-makers and the public need simple, understandable concepts like health.' Critics worry that ecosystem health, a 'value-laden construct', is often 'passed off as science to unsuspecting policy makers and the public.' Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem. Ecosystem condition can vary as a result of fire, flooding, drought, extinctions, invasive species, climate change, mining, overexploitation in fishing, farming or logging, chemical spills, and a host of other reasons. There is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem, rather the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary depending upon which health metrics are employed in judging it and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment. Advocates of the health metaphor argue for its simplicity as a communication tool. 'Policy-makers and the public need simple, understandable concepts like health.' Critics worry that ecosystem health, a 'value-laden construct', is often 'passed off as science to unsuspecting policy makers and the public.' The health metaphor applied to the environment has been in use at least since the early 1800s and the great American conservationist Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) spoke metaphorically of land health, land sickness, mutilation, and violence when describing land use practices. The term 'ecosystem management' has been in use at least since the 1950s. The term 'ecosystem health' has become widespread in the ecological literature, as a general metaphor meaning something good, and as an environmental quality goal in field assessments of rivers, lakes, seas, and forests. Recently however this metaphor has been subject of quantitative formulation using complex systems concepts such as criticality, meaning that a healthy ecosystem is in some sort of balance between adaptability (randomness) and robustness (order) . Nevertheless the universality of criticality is still under examination and is known as the Criticality Hypothesis, which states that systems in a dynamic regime shifting between order and disorder, attain the highest level of computational capabilities and achieve an optimal trade-off between robustness and flexibility. Recent results in cell and evolutionary biology, neuroscience and computer science have great interest in the criticality hypothesis, emphasizing its role as a viable candidate general law in the realm of adaptive complex systems (see and references therein). The term ecosystem health has been employed to embrace some suite of environmental goals deemed desirable. Edward Grumbine's highly cited paper 'What is ecosystem management?' surveyed ecosystem management and ecosystem health literature and summarized frequently encountered goal statements: Grumbine describes each of these goals as a 'value statement' and stresses the role of human values in setting ecosystem management goals. It is the last goal mentioned in the survey, accommodating humans, that is most contentious. 'We have observed that when groups of stakeholders work to define … visions, this leads to debate over whether to emphasize ecosystem health or human well-being … Whether the priority is ecosystems or people greatly influences stakeholders' assessment of desirable ecological and social states.' and, for example, 'For some, wolves are critical to ecosystem health and an essential part of nature, for others they are a symbol of government overreach threatening their livelihoods and cultural values.' Measuring ecosystem health requires extensive goal-driven environmental sampling. For example, a vision for ecosystem health of Lake Superior was developed by a public forum and a series of objectives were prepared for protection of habitat and maintenance of populations of some 70 indigenous fish species. A suite of 80 lake health indicators was developed for the Great Lakes Basin including monitoring native fish species, exotic species, water levels, phosphorus levels, toxic chemicals, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish tissue contaminants, etc. Some authors have attempted broad definitions of ecosystem health, such as benchmarking as healthy the historical ecosystem state 'prior to the onset of anthropogenic stress.' A difficulty is that the historical composition of many human-altered ecosystems is unknown or unknowable. Also, fossil and pollen records indicate that the species that occupy an ecosystem reshuffle through time, so it is difficult to identify one snapshot in time as optimum or 'healthy.'.