The Challenge of Scale:Is Biodiversity Big Science?

Woody TurnerBiodiversity & Ecological Forecasting

Team Meeting

University of Maryland

May 1, 2008

“All Politics Is Local.”Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr.

All Biodiversity is Local?

How We See Challenges of Scale

Helicobacterium pylorii Genome from:http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Books/Chapters/Ch%2038/Pylori-Genome.gif

(Source: Wikipedia)

(Source: Wikipedia)

Great Basin bristlecone pineSource: Wikipedia

MayflySource: Wikipedia

There’s also Time

Importance of Time Series

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve

µm

m

ha

10 km

1000 km

Down-scaling forProcesses

Up-scaling forLarge

Patterns

We Do This Already (to some degree)

(Haury et al. 1978 in J. H. Steele ed. Spatial Pattern in Plankton Communities

via Tiffany Vance at http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/Pickup/Tiffany_Defense.pdf)

Stommel Diagram of Spatial & Temporal Scales of Zooplankton BiomassVariability

“Indeed, the disruptive selection regime, by which population genetics becomes more molecular while ecosystems science becomes more global, may enhance the speciation of the two communities of scientists unless novel efforts are made to relate the phenomena that transpire on the disparate scales of interest.”

(Talking about the patchiness of zooplankton vs. phytoplankton)“Thus a two-scale model is needed, and a general lesson learned: no single mechanism explains pattern on all scales. In this case, pattern seems extrinsically driven on broad scales, and autonomously generated on fine scales.”

“…it is the interaction among phenomena on different scales that must occupy our attention.”

“This is the key to scaling and interrelating phenomena at different scales: knowing what fine detail is relevant at the higher levels, and what is noise.”

“The problem of relating phenomena across scales is the central problem in biology and in all of science.”

Simon Levin in Ecology 1992(from 1989 MacArthur Award Lecture)

C. Rutz et al., Science 318, 765 (2007)

Video Cameras on Wild Birds

Sanderson et al., Conservation Biology 22:252-266 (2008)

Science 314:1419 (2006)

Science 313:833 (2006)

Science 315:1846 (2007) Science 314:963 (2006)

Why?

“To test the utility of remote sensing observations to promote our understanding of biodiversity and track its changes over time, we must first bring satellite and airborne observations together with in situ or “bottom up” assessments of biodiversity. Given the spatial scales involved, remote sensing will largely, but not exclusively, focus on the ecosystem and biome levels of organization while in situ observations will focus on the genetic and species levels of organization. Various models will serve as integration tools linking remotely-sensed and in situ data sets.

…This solicitation places special emphasis on two key aspects of ecology, which are very relevant to biodiversity studies: distribution and abundance. In doing so, we seek proposals that combine NASA satellite and airborne remote sensing data with in situ biodiversity data to characterize the distribution and/or abundance of elements of biodiversity in dynamic environments.

…In situ data sets may include information from biodiversity inventories and surveys, animal-borne sensors and cameras, molecular genetic markers, soil microbial probes, and/or other tools useful in estimating the distribution and abundance of populations, species, and communities.”

From ROSES A.5 Biodiversity

The Human Footprint

Sanderson et al. 2002. Bioscience.

www.wcs.org/humanfootprint

Time of Scarcity?

We Are the Fortunate Ones

Every creature is full of God and a book about God. Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic (c.1260-c.1328)

We need an expedition to planet Earth, where probably fewer than 10 percent of the life forms are known to science, and fewer than 1 percent of those have been studied beyond a simple anatomical description and a few notes on natural history. … Although it (biology) depends upon a solid base of physics and chemistry for its functional explanations, and the theory of natural selection for its evolutionary explanations, it is defined uniquely by the particularity of its elements. E. O. Wilson, secular humanist & biologist

Perhaps life on Earth has the tools we need to relieve scarcities on our living planet. Those with a global view may be the first at understanding global problems.

Do we have a global responsibility?