17 - Livestock and Engineering Network in the Israeli Negev: Implications for Ecosystem Management

This chapter introduces the concept of engineering network. This concept encompasses the web of interactions among processes at the landscape, ecosystem, and community levels, emerging from the activity of an assemblage of ecosystem engineers (EEs). The development of the concept is based on the accumulative knowledge of functioning of natural, multiple EEs in the Negev. The chapter further develops the EE network concept by constructing an integrated model that combines natural and domestic organisms. The chapter concludes by discussing the utility of the model for ecosystem management issues related to pastoralism and recreation. The various management options in the Negev are based on the optimization of the spatial ratio between the two patch types created by the principal EEs. In fact, the crux of the management in the Negev is the optimal landscape modulation according to desired exploitation.