Systemic Management: Sustainable Human Interactions with Ecosystems and the Biosphere (Oxford Biology)

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

This page intentionally left blank

Systemic Management Sustainable Human Interactions with Ecosystems and the Biosphere Charles W. Fowler National Marine Mammal Laboratory Seattle, Washington

The views and opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author and do not reflect policy of the National Marine Fisheries Service or the Department of Commerce.

1

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978–0–19–954096–9 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the cover

The art on the cover of this book was painted by Katherine Zecca, former graphic designer and scientific illustrator at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center (NOAA, NMFS) in Seattle, Washington, and now a freelance artist in Vermont (http://www.katherinezecca.com/). Typical of the excellence of her work, this piece shows some of the patterns and processes characteristic of ecosystems. Primary producers are found on the left with species from increasingly higher trophic categories toward the right. Species with small bodies are found at the bottom and the largest species are found at the top. Partially hidden in various locations are species that represent

processes and characteristics of species and ecosystems. These include extinction (a fish), mobility (a bat), and symbiotic interactions (a humming bird), and emerging diseases (an AIDS virus). Original requests for this art expressed the hope that a hidden representation of humans, to symbolize their influence on, and place in, nature, could be included. The difficulty of the task was rendered moot when readers pointed out that the ear of the elephant contains three different hidden images of human faces. These were totally unintentional, making their presence even more symbolic of the message of this book.

v

This page intentionally left blank

Dedication

In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. Great law of the Hau de no Saunee*

This book is dedicated to (and in memory of) my father, Ervon W. Fowler, for his lessons in thought and to (and in memory of) my mother, Merna, who taught me the love of reality. It is also dedicated to Dr Gordon Orians whose incomparable insight regarding the natural world is reflected in my thinking, to my wonderful wife, Jean, for her enduring support and love, and finally, and most importantly, to the next seven generations of all species.

* Versions of the “law of the seventh generation” similar to that quoted here are frequently found in expressions of responsibility for our future. Some of its historical origins are documented conceptually in Fenton (1968), Parker (1916), Scott (1912), and Wallace (1946). As indicated by Hodgson (1989): “The law of the seven generations is found in the Bible and in the teachings of many cultures around the world. Among the First Nations, the Iroquois maintain it is a gift from our ancestors, whose overwhelming wisdom is inherent in its culture, political and philosophical definition. As Chiefs, as Leaders, we are to consider carefully, the effects of our decisions on the seven generations yet to come.”

vii

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

We can never solve our significant problems from the same level of thinking we were at when we created the problem. —Albert Einstein

Humans are now reawakening to an awareness of themselves as part of the vastly complex web of life. In part, we are realizing the enormous influence our species has and the extent to which we—in our hubris—have disrupted this web, risking extinction of our own species along with countless others. Can humanity find for itself a sustainable niche within the web of life? What serves to define that niche? These are the ultimate questions addressed by this book. Such questions were hardly so clear when this book was first conceived. In the mid-1980s, the United States’ National Marine Mammal Laboratory was reorganized, partly with the intent of converting from a species-oriented structure to a discipline-oriented structure. This change was related to decisions within the National Marine Fisheries Service, along with other government and nongovernmental organizations, to take seriously management as it would involve ecosystems. I became responsible for contributing to a scientific basis for management at the ecosystem level. I soon learned, however, that we only make a small step in the right direction when ecosystems are added to what we consider. It became clear that extending conventional concepts of management to ecosystems is causing more problems than are being solved. Full-scale change is needed, and a major part involves the way we think—our beliefs. One of the central themes of this book is that of identifying the information that most realistically provides guidance—a very select part of the information revealed by science.

I came to realize that we cannot control the nonhuman; control is limited primarily to human action. Reining in our incredible influential power serves as a form of management. The option of minimizing abnormality, to achieve health (at all levels) becomes real. We can limit our interactions with other species, with ecosystems, and with individuals (Christensen et al. 1996, Fowler 2005, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, Mangel et al. 1996). Thus, the option of managing our use of ecosystems to mimic other species emerged in my thinking as an option that has its parallels at all levels of biological organization. We, as individuals, and as a species, can manage our use of, interactions with, and influence on, other individuals, other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. Our species is just one part of the picture. This reality requires us to face questions about the constraints and actions our species should require of itself. We need to recognize that we are part of various systems that include other species faced with the same reality and complexity that we face. Fitting in means being a normal part. Early in my work on this book, it seemed to me that the problems that confront us could be dealt with by further consideration, acceptance, and integration of the concept of extinction—especially selective extinction and speciation. However, it soon became clear that this was not going to suffice for management either. Like other fields of science, it provides critical understanding, but could never guide decision-making by itself. Whole systems thinking also greatly influenced my own thinking. All systems are finite while complexity and

ix

x

PREFACE

reality are not; there had to be an approach that was not confined to any one system or level in the hierarchical structure of life. All had to be taken into account. A different perspective began to take form. The form of management that emerged was systemic management to minimize human abnormality. Realizing the potential was one of the most gratifying experiences of my career. Systemic management builds on the variety of ways we understand reality. With a major reassignment of the role of stakeholders, it conforms to the requirements of management as laid out in the literature. In my attempt to digest the literature on management at the ecosystem level, I found frequent mention of the need for “unifying” perspectives; holism was needed. As I proceeded, the needs and the potential seemed to match. What we study are the parts of reality in its unified form: holism is found in reality; informative natural patterns emerge in this reality, integrating through emergence. This book, then, is intended to open the door to a conversion in thinking, similar to what I experienced in the process of writing it. I see a need for the recognition and application of information more directly related to reality. All of the things that science studies are combined in nature—the reality we want to be part of in finding sustainability. That combination is what all sciences would account for if their disciplines could be united. My hope is that humans can find sustainability in this context.

I expect controversy—controversy stems naturally from change. Most controversial, perhaps, will be the conclusion that the role of values and opinions needs to be replaced. They take on an entirely different role in systemic management: motivation for asking clear management questions. I identify problems in the conventional use of science. This is not to be misinterpreted; research and scientists are not to be branded as wrong or ill-intended. Rather than demonize science, my message concerns the identification and use of the products of science that best meet our needs for guidance. I wrote this book for the benefit of the biota of the earth, focusing on action we humans can take, primarily as a species. As parents discover, we are not born with user guides: one title suggested for the book was “How to be a successful species.” This book is part of my contribution to human success through my own individual action. If the messages and implications are troublesome, we must be mindful that benefits at the species level often require sacrifice at the individual level, sacrifices that become more extreme when ecosystems and the biosphere are included. In the spectrum of time scales, short-term benefits involve long-term costs and, conversely, short-term efforts involve longterm gains. This book is my best effort toward thinking of the welfare of future generations of the human species, and all those species that accompany and support us in life. I hope it will lead to substantive progress.

Acknowledgments

I could never have produced this book alone. I benefitted beyond measure from the support, challenge, and insight, from the complements and criticisms, and from the advice and difference of opinion from others—all immeasurable contributions to an improved product. My phenomenal wife, Jean, supported me through the entire process, tolerating extensive hours spent working at home, and enduring diversions that true passions entail. There can be no adequate expression of my thanks to her! Howard Braham, R.V. Miller, Doug DeMaster, Sue Moore and John Bengtson, Peter Boveng, Phil Clapham, Bob DeLong, Tom Gelatt, Tom Loughlin, and Paul Wade were supervisors and fellow program leaders at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory during my work on this book. These understanding people sacrificed time on my behalf and provided much needed support and encouragement. If there are others who deserve co-authorship in this work, they would clearly include Jason Baker, Larry Hobbs and Dorothy Craig. Jason provided invaluable help in editing various versions of the book, wrestling with consistency, and endless discussions regarding the weaving of concepts into an intelligible whole. Larry has been absolutely invaluable and a constant source of support and wisdom, ideas and thinking throughout the process. The importance of his contributions is beyond measure. Dorothy brought both a passion and understanding of my message as well as a sharp editorial mind. I have learned as much in working with these three as I have in any other aspect of this project. In a similarly personal way, I want to thank Shannon McCluskey and Cynthia Hedlund for reminding me of myself—easily lost in the mission and passions behind this book.

I thank both Alec MacCall, and Andrea Belgrano for their encouragement, interest, and suggestions for getting this book published. Alec provided more reviews of this book than any other person; his contributions are deeply appreciated. Andrea’s suggestion that Oxford University Press should be the publisher was pivotal in getting to this point. I thank my colleagues at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, especially those who contributed to the final review of the manuscript: Phil Clapham, Bob DeLong, Sharon Melin, Susan Picquelle, Jay VerHoef, and Paul Wade. Over the years, the immense task of getting to this point has involved valuable reviews (including those of related foundational papers), many discussions, criticisms, and challenges, moral support, altered schedules, art and graphs, suggested references, information, and data extracted from a wide variety of sources. Numerous interns and students have been invaluable in searching literature, finding data, and writing reports. In seeking publication, several editors have provided invaluable comments and suggestions as did reviewers from whom they sought advice. I requested reviews from a variety of fields of science, from various friends and from many colleagues—all of them were invaluable in their help. Earlier drafts of this book were used in university-level courses at several universities, and I appreciate the criticisms, comments, and suggestions that were generated. Collectively they are too numerous to list, but I extend my heartfelt appreciation to each and every one. In addition to those listed above, Jim Anderson, Eric Charnov, Jerry Cufley, Alec MacCall, Jim MacMahon, Marty Nelson, Mike Perez, Tim Ragen, Tim Smith, and Paula White have been a continuing xi

xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

source of inspiration and our many thought-provoking conversations have been invaluable to me. Special thanks go to Bob Francis and Marc Mangel who coordinated two of the upper-division university courses that used the manuscript for this book as a text. The kindness of Jim Brown, Robert Furness, Jane Masterson, Melanie Moses, Mark Pagel, Robert Peters, Robin Phillips, and Douglas Kelt for their efforts and time in providing data and graphic material is gratefully acknowledged. Various communities of people have contributed to foundations upon which this book rests. These include those who have developed (and continue to develop) the various fields of science—especially those focusing on selective extinction/speciation (see Okasha 2006), ecology, and macroecology. The time, money, and personal expense behind revealing pattern-based information is immense and cannot go without being acknowledged. Another group includes those who have spent considerable time and effort in developing the concepts of management (e.g., see the references of Appendices 4.1 and 4.3 and workers to whom these references lead). This extends to those who have delved into

epistemology and the role of human thought in psychology, values, decision making, and control. Here, people like Gregory Bateson count heavily in my mind. I am grateful to all the people who have contributed to thinking about management. There is a clear precedence to the message that we can learn from nature in the works of people like Aldo Leopold, John Muir and Wendell Berry—an innumerable group of thinkers (including many from the world’s ancient wisdom traditions) whose contributions I hope I have at least partially translated to a scientifically based way of proceeding. To those whom I have overlooked in the many hours of searching the relevant literature, I apologize. I thank them all! The editorial help of Dorothy Craig, Gary Duker and Jim Lee was invaluable. My sincere gratitude to the editors and staff at Oxford University Press, especially Ian Sherman, Helen Eaton, Carol Bestley, Caroline Broughton, and Kathy Lahav—tireless dedicated people. This book is what it is, in part, as a result of everyone’s contribution. It remains a first step, however, and only the future can reveal how blind I remain in my human view of that future and the reality to be faced in being part of it.

Contents

1 Systemic management—what and why? 1.1 Tenets of management 1.2 Motivation for change 1.3 Introducing pattern-based management: systemic management in the eastern Bering Sea 1.4 Summary and preview

1 2 5 12 18

2 Patterns among species: information 2.1 Patterns among species 2.2 The eastern Bering Sea example 2.3 Summary and preview

22 23 52 54

3 Selective extinction and speciation 3.1 Natural selection among individuals and species 3.2 Understanding extinction and speciation 3.3 Interaction of evolutionary processes 3.4 Influence of environment on extinction, speciation, and selectivity 3.5 Historical perspective 3.6 Implications for management 3.7 The eastern Bering Sea example 3.8 Summary and preview

55 56 59 64

4 Why conventional management does not work 4.1 Transitive management in relation to identified criteria for management 4.2 Other recognized drawbacks of conventional management 4.3 Inadequacy of current approaches to management by focal level 4.4 Fatal flaws in conventional management by focal level 4.5 Including ecosystems and the biosphere in management 4.6 The case for systemic management 4.7 The eastern Bering Sea example 4.8 Summary and preview

78 78 84 93 108 111 116 117 120

5 Why systemic management works 5.1 Systemic management adheres to the tenets of management 5.2 Limitations of systemic management 5.3 Why extinction should be a management issue

121 122 141 147

68 70 74 75 77

xiii

xiv

CONTENTS

5.4 A protocol for systemic management 5.5 The eastern Bering Sea example 5.6 Summary and preview

148 153 157

6 Humans: a species beyond limits 6.1 Limits to natural variation as limits to sustainability 6.2 Consideration of hierarchy 6.3 The eastern Bering Sea example 6.4 Summary and preview

159 159 190 196 203

Epilogue Notes List of Appendices References Author Index Subject Index

204 227 251 253 279 285

CHAPTER 1

Systemic management—what and why?

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. —John Muir

We are faced with an uncertain future. Species are disappearing. Deforestation, agriculture, and fishing have changed ecosystems. Our polluted Earth is warming, the pH of our oceans is declining, and introduced species are altering their habitat. Scientists discover more problems every day. We may have evolved to become an extinction-prone species. Can humans manage other species, ecosystems, or the Earth in response to this information? No. Because of the complexity and interconnected nature of reality, management that seeks to control, dominate, or design such systems is doomed to ultimate failure. Managing the nonhuman usually causes more problems than it solves. Within limits, what we can manage is ourselves— in essence, reinventing ourselves as a species (Berry 1999). We can manage our interactions, influence, and relationships with each other and with the nonhuman. Managing to find an appropriate fit or place in our universe (“systemic management”, Fowler 2003) requires self-control. This book explores systemic management, its applications, and foundation. Such management has a broad set of objectives, with the primary goal being sustainability for both humans and the nonhuman.1 This means striving toward a future in which ecosystems and the biosphere can support a diversity of life, including humans. Ecosystems and other living systems respond to human influence and will respond to a sustainable human presence. One of the conclusions of this book is that immense change will be required; current

efforts are exposed as largely artificial, superficial, and fallacious. This book has two primary objectives: 1. To propose systemic management as a replacement for conventional forms of management. Systemic management emerges from the tenets developed for management in the last several decades. These include our understanding of ourselves (e.g., as individuals, societies, and a species), our thinking and our belief systems. Systemic management is realitybased management with a variety of components that include ecosystem-based management. In its application, systemic management fully accounts for the complexity of nature and avoids the errors of conventional management. 2. To describe an empirical objective methodology that provides guidance for achieving sustainable relationships between humans and the nonhuman. Carefully using natural patterns (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler 2003, Fowler and Hobbs 2002) to guide human endeavor achieves objectivity not found in conventional management. The selection of patterns that will meet our needs requires that we ask our management questions with extreme care. Science then reveals patterns that match these questions and provide answers that prevent the misguidance of conventional management. Such science best meets the needs of management. Although systemic management applies generally, the examples in this book focus primarily on sustainability among species. Empirical 1

2

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

(e.g., macroecological) patterns reveal what it means to be sustainable as a species. Species reflect the numerous and often very powerful forces of nature. Our species has the choice of living within the limits of nature or facing the consequences of being anomalous—one of which is an untimely extinction. Defining what it takes and then being a successful species are both complex, nontrivial matters. Complicated relationships with our environment include countless interactions with other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere (e.g., our use of water, consumption of food, and production of CO2). Management involves social, religious, ethnic, political, and economic elements, exemplified by decision making, laws, policy, and action. Systemic management involves actions and decisions by individuals, institutions, and society—all carried out consistently (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). Being in accord with the laws of nature by mimicking empirical examples of sustainability results in consistency and objectivity. Because empirical examples reflect the complexity of their emergence, systemic management involves context and the complexity of the biological systems of which we are a part. It involves time scales we ordinarily ignore. It involves thinking about our thinking so as to embrace a basis for management that replaces thinking. It means abandoning the artificial and adopting the real. It means embracing the holistic of reality (Appendix 1.1). This chapter summarizes the underlying concepts of the book including: An introduction to systemic management as it emerges from published tenets of management, derived in part from the recognized need for ecosystem applications (Fowler 2003). A review of the motivation to reject current management and accept a preferable, more objective, alternative. An introduction to some of the steps involved in systemic management as applied to the eastern Bering Sea, an example of the ecosystem component of systemic management that will be developed at the end of each subsequent chapter. A summary and preview of the progression of concepts found in the chapters ahead.

●

●

●

●

1.1 Tenets of management Management includes our use of natural resources, our interaction with other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. Great importance was placed on defining the principles of such management in the late 20th century (Rockford et al. 2008). Much of this effort was motivated by the need for management that applies to ecosystems (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, McCormick 1999). The resulting work has been synthesized on numerous occasions (e.g., Arkema et al. 2006, Fowler 2003, Francis et al. 2007, Lackey 1998). With one primary exception, these tenets are more completely embodied in systemic management than any other approach. That exception involves the role of stakeholders (Fig. 1.1); it is a major exception. In conventional management, stakeholders are involved in setting objectives and making decisions. In systemic management, the role of stakeholders is confined to asking clear management and science questions, followed by carrying out management with objectives inherent to the information produced by science. Objectivity is achieved in this shift—systemic management is pattern-based rather than opinion-based management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). The science behind systemic management provides information that needs no conversion; the translation (Brosnan and Groom 2006) inherent to current management becomes unnecessary in answering management questions systemically. Nine primary tenets of management are introduced below. Following each tenet is a very brief description of how systemic management simultaneously and consistently adheres to the principles involved. Management Tenet 1: Management must be based on an understanding of humans as part of complex biological systems (Christensen et al. 1996, Mangel et al. 1996, NRC 1999). Systemically, humans are not separate from, unaffected by, or free of our own limits, or the limits imposed by the systems we influence and of which we are a part. Management includes learning to function sustainably as components of not only ecosystems and the biosphere but of the interconnected universe in which we find ourselves. Precluding human existence is not an objective. Management Tenet 2: Management must recognize that control over other species and ecosystems is impos-

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

3

Conventional management

Problem or management issue

Vague management question

Available scientific information

Select and convert information

Decision/ action

Stakeholders

Step 1

Problem or management issue

Step 2

Define/refine management question

Step 3

Specific research question

Step 4

Consonant pattern revealed by science

Step 5

Action

Stakeholders Systemic management Figure 1.1 Schematic comparison of conventional and systemic management showing the difference in the role of stakeholders (Belgrano and Fowler 2008).

sible (Christensen et al. 1996, Holling and Meffe 1996, Mangel, et al. 1996, NRC 1999). The most realistic option for control is control of human action (intransitive management, Fowler 2003) and decision making—as limited as that itself may be. The self-control of systemic management acknowledges that we can control our influence on the nonhuman (e.g., fishing with all its effects on fish, and their ecosystem) much more effectively than we can control the nonhuman (e.g., other species, their ecosystems, and habitat). It is axiomatic that all human influence (like the influence of all species) has its consequences, whether direct or indirect—a fact over which we have no control. Management Tenet 3: Management must account for the complexities of reality, including the various scales of time, space, and biological organization (Christensen et al. 1996, Costanza et al. 1992, Mangel et al. 1996, Moote et al. 1994). Systemic management is based, in part, on the reality of emergence. 2 Through emergence, natural patterns are infinitely integrative and replace human institutions in objectively and holistically accounting for complexity in the interconnectedness of nature (Belgrano and Fowler

2008). Included in this complexity is the reality of numerous human influences. Human limitations are real—there are things we will never know. Management Tenet 4: Management must be consistent in its applications, particularly in simultaneous application at the various levels of biological organization (Christensen et al. 1996, Costanza et al. 1992, Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1998, Hobbs and Fowler 2008, Moote et al. 1994). In systemic management, the thinking and action of individuals, governments, and institutions are consistent. Human influence on nonhuman populations or species is consistent with our influence on ecosystems or the biosphere. There is consistency between management questions and guiding information produced by science. Management Tenet 5: Management must strive to avoid the abnormal in processes, relationships, individual organisms, species, and ecosystems (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Christensen et al. 1996, Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1998, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, Mangel et al. 1996). Abnormal conditions of any kind are the basis for taking the responsibility to find and correct underlying human

4

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

abnormalities. Healthy1 systems are an important objective of systemic management—with consistency (Management Tenet 4) involving individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. This tenet promotes the objectivity of systemic management achieved by confining the role of stakeholders to that of asking clear questions (Fig. 1.1) followed by carrying out management action. Management Tenet 6: Management must be risk averse and strive to achieve sustainability (Christensen et al. 1996, Francis et al. 2007, Holt and Talbot 1978, Mangel et al. 1996, NRC 1999). Sustainability is, by definition, not achieved by any form of management that generates abnormal levels of risk. In adhering to Tenets 3 and 4, systemic management treats risk in its aggregate so that consistency is achieved. Extinction is a risk accounted for in the emergence of patterns. Sustainability is achieved by avoiding the abnormal (Management Tenet 5) as revealed in such patterns. Management Tenet 7: Management must be based on information (Christensen et al. 1996, Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force 1995, Malone 1995, Mangel et al. 1996, NRC 2004). Information from integrative patterns is at the core of systemic management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler 2003, 2008). This information, at least partially cybernetic in nature, provides managers with objective, meaningful, measurable, and reasonable goals and standards (Management Tenet 9) of which maximizing information and biodiversity (Fowler 2008) is an option. Management Tenet 8: Management must include science and scientific information (Christensen et al. 1996, Francis et al. 2007, Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force 1995, Malone 1995, Mangel et al. 1996). Both conventional and systemic management rely on carefully conducted science. Systemic management, however, recognizes a difference between the products of science and the scientific process to define the best scientific information for management: there must be consonance between management questions and the scientifically revealed natural patterns used to address them (Management Tenet 4) in implementing Management Tenet 5. Management Tenet 9: Management must have clearly defined, measurable goals and objectives (Christensen

et al. 1996, NRC 1999). Integrative natural patterns provide a basis for detecting and measuring the abnormal. The magnitude of problems before us becomes clear. Fixed-point goals are not part of systemic management insofar as patterns in variation of variation make adaptability part of the process. Systemic management provides consistent (Management Tenet 4) guidelines, criteria, and standards of reference for action (e.g., to maximize biodiversity; Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Notable in the list above is the confined role of stakeholders; this is consistent (Management Tenet 4) with the requirement of objectivity inherent to Management Tenets 7 and 8. The importance of involving stakeholders is widely recognized (e.g., Arkema, et al. 2006, Francis et al. 2007, Moote et al. 1994, Mangel et al. 1996, Phillips and Randolph 2000). However, this is often equated with making human values other than that of systemic sustainability (avoiding the abnormal) the basis for the decision-making process (Franklin 1997, Grumbine 1997, Hull 2006, Mangel et al. 1996, Moote et al. 1994, NRC 2006, Norton 1987, Sagoff 1992, Salwasser et al. 1993) rather than simply knowing that such values count as components of the complex systems of which we are a part. Intentional use of such values in decision making effectively precludes from the tenets found in the literature a tenet specifically expressing demands for objectivity (e.g., solution to the polarity between the biocentric and anthropocentric; Stanley 1995); some claim that valueneutral approaches are a myth (Norton 2005). Systemic management acknowledges all stakeholders (managers, scientists, government leaders, organizations and institutions, indigenous societies, and individuals) and their values as parts of systems important to management (Management Tenet 1). In conventional management, stakeholders are involved in decision making (converting information to objectives and the intended course of action; Brosnan and Groom 2006) making management subjective. In systemic management, this role is replaced by informative integrative patterns (Fig. 1.1) produced through research designed in response to good management questions, posed with the help of all stakeholders. Human limitations do not enter into the process of converting

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

information to objectives, thus dealing with the reality (Management Tenet 3) of human limits. This achieves a degree of objectivity not possible in conventional management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Each carefully posed management question then defines the science needed to reveal the matching pattern; the science that best meets the needs of management. Defining such science has not heretofore been possible (NRC 2004).

1.2 Motivation for change There are a number of reasons to consider alternatives to conventional management. The need for change is seen on many fronts and falls into six categories: Deterioration (abnormal state) of many of the world’s ecosystems, the biosphere, and the environment in general—failures of conventional management. Recognized inherent inadequacies that contribute to the failures of conventional management. Legal mandates in the form of legislation and international agreements that require managers to account for more complexity (e.g., ecosystems and other broader bioregional and global scales, evolutionary and geological time scales). Flaws in the traditional use of science in management. Lack of standards, criteria, reference points, and normative information for systems such as ecosystems. Lack of clearly defined, broadly accepted ecosystem-level management.

●

Earth’s ecosystems and biosphere (MEA 2005a, b); much of this change is anthropogenic (Moran 2006). The magnitude and pervasive nature of anthropogenic influence on our planet has reached such extremes that scientists now refer to this period of time in Earth’s history as the Anthropocene Era, partly in response to the geophysical nature of some of the impacts we are having (Steffen et al. 2004). In many cases, scientists think of the current states of ecosystems and the biosphere as abnormal. The abnormal concentration of CO2 currently in our atmosphere is an example (Fig. 1.2), bringing with it global warming, oceanic acidification, redistribution of water/ice, and other associated changes and ramifications yet to be recognized by science. We have cleared forests for agricultural use and harvested timber so extensively as to cause

●

CO2 concentration (ppm)

●

●

One of the roles of science is to reveal problems. Science has revealed a great deal of change in the

350

400,000-year record

300 250 200 4

3 2 1 Years before present (105)

0

0.20 Portion of observations

●

1.2.1 Abnormal state of ecosystems and the biosphere

400

150

●

Most, or all, of the above involve human values that are brought to the task of change—change developed in this book as critically necessary. This change involves the processes of decision making, policy setting, and finding objectives. It avoids using values (other than sustainability), emotions, politics, and opinion as the basis for policy.

5

400,000-year pattern

0.15 0.10

Early 2000s

0.05 0.00 150

200

250 300 350 CO2 concentration (ppm)

400

Figure 1.2 The historical record (as reconstructed from ice cores) of atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the past 400,000 years (ppm, top panel) and the resulting pattern of variation showing the abnormality of currently observed levels (bottom panel; Dr Pieter Tans, NOAA/ESRL [www.cmdl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends]).

6

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

0

(A)

(B)

(C)

(c. 1000 AD)

(c. 1840)

Present

100 200 300 km

Figure 1.3 The forest cover of New Zealand (shown in black) in its decline from about 1000 AD (prior to human arrival) to 1840 (prior to European settlement) and the mid-1990s (updated from Mark and McSweeney 1990, after Froude et al. 1985, with maps provided by R. Philips).

dramatic declines in the area of the Earth covered by forests (e.g., Fig. 1.3). Even greater changes have occurred in grassland ecosystems (Thomas 1956). The world’s commercial fisheries are largely overharvested (even by conventional standards, Francis et al. 2007, Myers and Worm 2003, NRC 1999, Rosenberg et al. 1993) and many freshwater fisheries have disappeared (Karr 1994). Bats, bees, and other pollinating species are exhibiting population declines (NRC 2007). Many species are threatened; amphibian extinction is a small part of an overall extinction crisis (Groom et al. 2006, Raven and Cracraft 1999). Related ecosystem changes include: reduced food chain length (mean trophic level) and reduced mean body size in many species, increased predominance of pests and diseases, and altered species composition, distribution of biomass, productivity, decomposition, cycling of nutrients and biomass, community respiration levels, and net production. Although many problems are obvious, there is concern that we have little information about the normal states of ecosystems against

which to objectively measure the abnormality (Costanza et al. 1992a). The consequences of altered ecosystems to humans—especially future generations—are increasingly being recognized. One ultimate consequence is the increased risk of human extinction.3 Short of extinction is feedback (e.g., a global pandemic, Garrett 1994) resulting in the risk of an abnormally low human population. As indicated by Rapport (1992), altered ecosystems often include the loss of goods, services in support of humans,4 increasingly widespread disease and starvation (Pimentel et al. 2007), and altered coevolutionary interactions. In the larger perspective (systemically), the loss of goods and services to all species is of concern. Although human values may not be objective, they do serve to bring our attention to factors relevant to asking good management questions. Our emotional reactions to the changes we see around us serve well to help focus on specific interconnections and relationships between humans and the

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

nonhuman. The various values we bring to decision making can be used to focus management questions. Among these values are those we place on healthy ecosystems. These fall within a spectrum between the utilitarian-materialistic and intangibleaesthetic. Sagoff (1992) considers these values in three categories: instrumental, aesthetic, and moral. These values have resulted in action— management that has contributed to the patterns we observe today. Current management fails to address the extent to which instrumental, aesthetic, and moral benefits can be sustainably provided by the earth’s ecosystems. These benefits count among the complete set of services provided by ecosystems—important not only to humans, but to other species as well. In other words, the goods and services recognized as important to humans are important to all species. Every species depends on its ecosystem for survival. The related services include producing oxygen, absorbing carbon dioxide, regulating climate, recycling wastes (including detoxifying pollutants), controlling pests and disease (including resistance to invasion by exotic species), pollinating plants, preventing erosion, storing nutrients, and maintaining diversity (genetic potential for the future). The loss of such services for all species counts among the risks to be accounted for in management (Management Tenet 6). Economists find little challenge in placing monetary value on material products and many ecosystem services (e.g., see World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1992), and translate the loss of products from disturbed ecosystems to economic losses (e.g., Page 1992), whether it is a realistic translation or not. Stakeholders use these values to sway management decisions in current forms of management. As such, and owing to our part in nature (Management Tenet 1), they count among the factors (realities) reflected in the patterns we see today; these patterns are, in part, products of decision making based on the consideration of economic interests. Less tangible and quantifiable values are behind the aesthetic and recreational uses humans make of ecosystems. Many people enjoy foraging for berries, nuts, and mushrooms, and hunting and

7

fishing are a source of food and pleasure. Others enjoy just being in natural settings, supporting a huge ecotourism industry, backpacking/camping, nature-based healing (e.g., vision questing/fasting, and Outward Bound programs), and vacations in national parks. The value humans place on nature for nonconsumptive uses often declines to the extent it has been altered by human action. In North America, increasing value has been placed on wilderness—ecosystems in their wild state (Nash 1982). Visits by tourists to the natural settings of ecosystems seen as relatively free of human disturbance (ecotourism) have a growing economic importance for host countries and communities (World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1992). Aesthetic value is also found in the spiritual and religious aspects of our experience of nature and seen as fundamental to what we are as a species (Nash 1982, Plotkin 2008, Roszak et al. 1995). These include the psychological effects and insight from firsthand experiences (part of the focus of the field of ecopsychology, and nature-based therapy). These effects can be lost in degraded ecosystems (Appendix 1.2) contributing to reactions in the category of “nature-deficit disorder” recognized as a lack of exposure to the nonhuman in natural systems (Louv 2005). Many would consider these spiritual/cultural losses of equal importance to the loss of more materialistic services. More objectively, such services count among the set of reciprocal relationships we have with our environment. To one extent or another, being deprived of normally functioning ecosystems and natural environments precludes our experience of normal human–nature interactions. To the extent that this happens, dysfunctional (abnormal) individual, family, or social systems may result (Gore 1992, Roszak et al. 1995). In such situations, the effect on humans of being deprived of the experience of normal forms of natural systems is analogous to the reactive attachment disorder in individual infants who are deprived of interaction with loving parents (failure to thrive or hospitalism; American Psychiatric Association 1980). 5 Part of what is involved here is our dependence on a normal state of nature to our understanding6 of life in general (Bateson 1979), or life in all realms, from

8

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

cells to the biosphere, including the psychological and psychiatric (Dell and Goolishiam 1981, Roszak et al. 1995). To varying degrees, we are a species with unrealistic belief systems and socially dysfunctional patterns, in part as reflective of the abnormal in our relationships with the nonhuman. In the reciprocity of the interconnected aspects of complex systems, then, these are factors inherent to patterns observed in both society and our environment today. In this regard, the abnormal of both the human and the nonhuman is involved; they are reciprocally intertwined and part of the complexity important to management (Management Tenet 3).

1.2.2 Inadequacy of conventional management Conventional management suffers a general lack of objectivity. In the minds of many, this might be seen as the primary problem we face in management today; in addition to objectivity as an inherent demand of the tenets of management listed above, many would list a tenet specific to this need: Management should be objective. But the inadequacies of traditional management involve much more. There is a general failure to adhere to other tenets of management. Perhaps the main problem in conventional management is its erroneous logic (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Hobbs and Fowler 2008). We use information of one kind to make management decisions about matters of a different kind (there is a mismatch between information and policy—knowing that the pH of oceans is changing does not tell us how much CO2 can be produced sustainably by our species). Conventional management fails to account for complexity. Current approaches are largely transitive without adequate consideration of the consequences of our attempts to control nature. For example, problems in our continued use of conventional single-species approaches to manage natural resources are increasingly well recognized (e.g., Cairns 1986, Fowler 2003, Fowler and Smith 2004, Ludwig et al. 1993, Magnuson 1986, NRC 1999, Safina 1995, Schaeffer et al. 1988, Wagner 1977). Among these problems is the failure of conventional management to account for genetic effects

(see Conover and Munch 2002, Fenberg and Roy 2008, Law et al. 1993, Stokes and Law 2000, Swain et al. 2007, Thompson 2005), a factor recognized in coevolutionary predator-prey responses (Kerfoot and Sih 1989). Many have called for an evolutionarily enlightened form of management in view of the coevolutionary interactions (only one example of the ways things are interconnected; Swain et al. 2007, Thompson 2005). Management Tenet 3 requires that genetic and evolutionary factors be taken into account. We fail to account for evolution and complexity in the conventional use of models in management. Most single-species management models assume constant parameters, while in reality such parameters change constantly, especially over long time scales (Orians 1974, 1975, Pimentel 1966). Predatorprey interactions are under-represented and even ecosystem models fail to provide holistic/realistic guidance in our use of individual resource species (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, Ehrlich 1989, Peters 1991).7 The uncertainty involved is too extensive to overcome completely and predictions are unreliable (Ludwig et al. 1993, Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007). When reliable predictions are possible, most demand human evaluation and translation to management goals, which prevents objectivity in decision making. Current forms of management all too often fail to ask clear management questions (top row, Fig. 1.1). Ill-defined management questions are posed to experts (scientific committees, advisory boards, stakeholders) who are allowed to (required to) select and use information for decision making—often making unrealistic conversions (e.g., information on production as used in finding sustainable consumption in the management of fisheries; Fowler and Smith 2004). As a result, human limitations are, by design, inherent to the process and economic factors, politics, religious beliefs, and human values serve as the basis for decisions (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). The lack of objectivity in conventional management has, as part of its origins, poorly posed management questions—specifically, questions that are referred to stakeholders rather than being used to direct science toward the research necessary to obtain objective answers.

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

Recognition of the flaws and shortcomings of conventional management is another step toward realizing the need to seriously consider alternative forms of management—different paradigms (Lavigne et al. 2006).

1.2.3 Legal mandates to extend management to include ecosystems The seriousness of recognized environmental problems and the inadequacy of conventional approaches, have led to a variety of legal mandates worldwide.8 Many of these require undertaking “management at the ecosystem level” or “ecosystem-based management” despite the absence of any clear, widely accepted definition for just what such management is. In the United States, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) emphasizes the importance of the “ . . . health and stability of the marine ecosystem . . . .” To comply with such a mandate, we need to know what the “health”9 of an ecosystem is, how to measure it, and what we can do to practically apply such knowledge. As reviewed in Thorne-Miller and Catena (1991), the U.S. Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act requires consideration of the maintenance of ecosystem structure and prohibits the degrading of ecological systems. Goals of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Refuge System include the preservation, restoration, and enhancement of the natural ecosystems of all endangered or threatened species. The U.S. Endangered Species Act, the Magnuson Fishery Conservation, and Management Act (US Public Law 101–627) require ecosystem consideration in management. The preservation or protection of particular ecosystems is required in the management of U.S. National Parks and Refuges by a variety of statutory mandates (Thorne-Miller and Catena 1991). Other nations have their own environmental laws and regulations, many of which require ecosystem considerations. In Europe, these involve a number of international regulations, many of which involve nations outside the European Union (Mitchell 2003).

9

International mandates, in general, are exemplified by the agreement to study and manage the resources of the Antarctic. The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources explicitly requires an ecosystem perspective in obligating “ . . . prevention of changes or minimization of the risk of changes in the marine ecosystem which are not potentially reversible over two or three decades . . . .”10 Other international efforts to achieve ecosystem approaches to management are found in both government and nongovernmental programs. The United Nations Environment Program places particular attention on the effects of pollution on ecosystems. The International Union for the Conservation for Nature and Natural Resources, the Biosphere Reserve Program (sponsored by the UN’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), and The Nature Conservancy all have ecosystem-oriented objectives for conservation. Many existing international agreements and treaties regarding wildlife and the environment explicitly recognize or require consideration of ecosystems in management.11 Complexity is important in management (Management Tenet 3). The emphasis on ecosystems in legislation and the management literature is a step toward including more complexity. But it is only a step; it recognizes the need to extend the scope of management from individuals or individual species to include ecosystems. Beyond ecosystems, we now recognize the need to include the biosphere (Fuentes 1993, Huntley et al. 1991, Lubchenco et al. 1991, Myers 1989, Vallentyne 1993). We are beginning to appreciate the importance of accounting for the complexity of all levels of biological organization from cells to the biosphere (Management Tenet 4). Accounting for ecosystems, and the legal mandates to do so, are steps in that direction. The end point of efforts to list what should be taken into account would be the full complexity of reality (Appendix 1.1)—a list that is humanly impossible to achieve in conventional thinking. Finally, legislation in the United States requires the use of the best available scientific information in the process of management (NRC 2004). When values other than that of systemic sustainability are brought to the task of choosing information for use in management (e.g., what stakeholders

10

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

consider to be “sustainable development,” “sustainable growth,” or “sustainable economy,” Step 4, top row of Fig. 1.1), management is vulnerable to error. The erroneous nature of conventional management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008) can be viewed as just one of many major problems we currently face.

1.2.4 Flaws in our use of science Philosophers of science have debated the utility and nature of science extensively. The limitations and imperfections of science have become a matter of principle (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, Fowler 2003, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, Francis et al. 2007, Holt and Talbot 1978, NRC 1999). One of the main limitations of science is our inability to account for the unknown, especially in the construction of simulation models.7 It is one thing to know we leave out crucial information (omission of important processes, Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007), it is yet another to know that there are things we cannot know to include. Another limitation of science is the inability to assign objective relative importance to the various subjects of scientific study (e.g., the never-ending nature/nurture debate). We have historically taken the subjective path by relying on human judgment (e.g., the politics involved in the last step in conventional management as depicted in Fig. 1.1) to account for the unknown in science and management. We scientists find it impossible to combine our information into a coherent synthesis free of subjective judgment and almost always ignore the unknown (the Humpty-Dumpty syndrome, Fowler 2003). Scientific inquiry often proceeds with the assumption that things that are statistically insignificant are unimportant, yet we acknowledge the importance of such factors on longer time scales in the phenomenon referred to as the “butterfly effect”(Gleick 1987), or the effects of initial conditions (Bateson 1979, Brown et al. 1996, Koehl 1989, Merton 1936, Pennycuick 1992, Williams 1992). Many things are too subtle to be detected by conventional scientific methodology. Science is confined to the reductionistic; it involves human limitations, particularly the limits of the human mind. This is a reality to

be accounted for in management (Management Tenet 3). Conventional decision making and management fail to find a way in which reductionism provides a path forward. There is very often a mismatch between the information used and the management question being addressed (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). A prime example is the case of using information on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to promulgate regulations on CO2 production; abundance and production are two different things. Thus, when faced with information of one kind and a management question of a different kind, conversion by stakeholders is required (step 4, Fig. 1.1) rather than avoided. This process is inherently subjective and when we choose to continue with conventional approaches, we are choosing to avoid more objective options. Taken as a whole, science has shown us that things are interconnected (Plate 1.1) and complicated. Science helps us explain and predict; we know that there is explanation and pattern. Science has documented and explored the emergence of things that we observe. Science has discovered, named, categorized, and characterized many things. It also exposes problems. The products of science are dumped in the hands of stakeholders, managers, and teams of scientists who are asked to make sense of it all as part of making a decision (the information supplied to decision makers, step 3 in the top row of Fig. 1.1). We know that we humans are limited, yet that knowledge does not stop us from making decisions in defiance of the HumptyDumpty syndrome (converting and combining information selected from libraries full of available information to guide management—step 4 in the top row of Fig. 1.1). Conventional management has not found a way to use reductionistic science in a way that circumvents the problems of conventional decision making.

1.2.5 Lack of standards for ecosystems and the biosphere Both the magnitude and number of environmental changes occurring around us are of growing concern (MEA 2005, Moran 2006, Steffen et al. 2004). There are exceptions (e.g., Fig. 1.2, and more qualitatively, Fig. 1.3), but in many cases there is limited

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

basis for scientifically proving that we are seeing anything abnormal or for measuring abnormality (Management Tenet 5). We need much more information regarding normal variation for characteristics of ecosystems, especially over the long time, and large spatial scales relevant to such systems (Ricklefs 1989). Does the diversity, species composition, mean trophic level, or carbon content of (and flow through) ecosystems vary so much that ecosystems today can be considered normal? Or is such variation small enough that the changes we have caused make today’s ecosystems anomalous? Identifying, measuring, and interpreting ecosystem-level change are not well-developed skills. As Page (1992) puts it: “There are no constant reference points from which functions and norms can be defined.” Regardless of how we undertake management, it is important to have benchmarks for evaluating systems (including ecosystems) for two reasons. We need to be able to identify problems whether or not we can solve them directly, and we need to know if whatever we do in management is resulting in progress. Objective assessment is a crucial element of management and there has to be a scientifically valid way of providing information on both fronts (Management Tenets 7, 8, and 9). Standards, guidelines, and reference points emerge from information on the normal range of natural variation (Management Tenet 5), but these are quite rare for ecosystems and the biosphere compared to those that are used in human and veterinary medicine for individual organisms. As the changes occur in ecosystems and the biosphere, there is more need for criteria to evaluate them. The normal “state” of ecosystems is one thing, the normal “state” for species is another. There is growing attention to macroecology (as will be fleshed out in Chapter 2). In spite of what we have before us, there is a general lack of normative information about the influence other species have on their ecosystems and the biosphere. This impedes the comparative evaluation of human influence within such systems (Management Tenet 1), whether we currently fit in sustainably or not. Criteria are needed not only for defining and evaluating the health of ecosystems, but also for regulating our influence on ecosystems so that they achieve and

11

experience their own long term sustainability (i.e., are not abnormal owing to human influence). Sustainability in the long term, however, involves change—both human and nonhuman. Developing a realistic appraisal of ecosystems depends on information for ecosystems that have characteristics and properties representative of prevailing conditions. The current state of ecosystems reflect, among other things, human influence. To achieve long-term sustainability will require systems free of abnormal human influence; we need systems with structure, function, and variability typical of normal circumstances to serve as points of reference (Norton 1987, Management Tenet 3). Natural ecosystem change dictates that we need information on variation caused by factors such as season, climate, solar dynamics, and the coming and going of ice ages—the same as needed for individuals, species, and the biosphere. A great deal of recovery time will be required for ecosystems after they are relieved of abnormal human influence. In the mean time, current information is reflective of current circumstances—including human influence, belief systems, and values.

1.2.6 Lack of definition for management involving ecosystems Including ecosystems is part of the effort to account for greater complexity in management. A great deal of literature deals with this issue but most present principles or guidelines in indirect, vague, or general terms (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, Francis et al. 2007, Guerry 2005, Mangel et al. 1996 and the references therein). Definitions are often expressed in terms of desirable qualities rather than operational prescriptions for action (Haeuber and Franklin 1996). We are faced with a variety of tenets such as the nine listed above. Historical work has resulted in a useful list of issues, principles, concepts, or processes that can be used to evaluate alternative management processes. Conventional management clearly falls short of full and consistent adherence to these standards. The transitive and subjective aspects of the thinking behind conventional management is a major factor in preventing a good definition of ecosystem (or ecosystem-based) management. We

12

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

can only manage our interactions and relationships with ecosystems. We do not fully adhere to Management Tenet 2. However, the lack of clarity we have in defining management at the ecosystem level involves more. It involves a lack of full simultaneous, consistent, and objective adherence to all the tenets of management to include those beyond Management Tenet 2. This involves tenacious clinging to the belief that the current role of stakeholders is a viable option. In conventional management, this belief is held paramount to other tenets, especially Management Tenet 5. The need to account for or consider anything (factors, processes, principles) is translated to a human undertaking that involves thought, opinion, or nonconsonant artificial representations of reality (e.g., see Francis et al. 2007). Collaborative decision making, meetings of experts, and other institutional processes are used to convert scientific information to management (Fig. 1.1—a process vulnerable to politics and other human values). The fallacious inconsistency (Fowler and Smith 2004, Hobbs and Fowler 2008) inherent to this belief has contributed to the problems we face today and is a major component of our inability to define management at the ecosystem level. Anthropocentric values supersede objective consideration of the complex systems of which we are a part, of which we are composed, and of which we represent. Our central concern is how to go about integrating the combination of information we would like to bring to bear in management. Changing the approach (Botkin 1990, Lawton 1974, Lavigne et al. 2006, McGowan 1990, Orians and Paine 1983, Roughgarden 1989) is less frequently seen as necessary than are improvements (better application and further development; Wilson 1998) of existing approaches. This perpetuates the problem.

1.3 Introducing pattern-based management: systemic management in the eastern Bering Sea Systemic management relies heavily on using empirical information from other species12 as guidance for human self-control at the species level (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). This section introduces the basic methodology of using patterns (probabil-

ity distributions, empirically derived species frequency distributions, or macroecological patterns, Fowler and Perez 1999) to replace the decision making of conventional management. Examples from the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem provide an example of full ecosystem-based management—to include management of the suite of human influences on ecosystems. The eastern Bering Sea example is developed in each subsequent chapter to illustrate not only the part of systemic management involving ecosystems but also other parts, including those involving individual species and multispecies groups or communities. Patterns are part of the foundation for systemic management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Through the process of emergence,2 they provide integrated objective information that automatically accounts for the complexity we are unable to consider in conventional practices. A probability distribution like the standard “bell shaped curve” shown in Figure 1.4 is a function (f, that varies from pattern to pattern) of all factors (e i) that contribute to its formation (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Crawford 2004). Patterns integrate and account for complexity (the infinite in both panels of Fig. 1.4, or reality; Appendix 1.1) and all its elements in direct proportion to their relative importance. This includes all interactions and interrelationships—it specifically includes ecosystems. We don’t need to know the ei, or the function “f” (top panel, Fig. 1.4) or every contributing factor (arrows, bottom panel, Fig. 1.4), to use the probability distribution. It is information that represents a complete, integrated accounting of all factors through its emergence. Subjective assignment of the relative importance of various factors to be weighed in conventional decision making (Canter 1996) is replaced by the objective weights realized in nature to account for their actual relative importance. Patterns replace humans in accounting for complexity (Fig. 1.1). Graphs of species-level patterns (species frequency distributions; Fowler and Perez 1999) are scientific representations of empirical probability distributions for various measures of species (e.g., energy consumption, population size, trophic level, geographic range size, and mean adult body size). Species are concentrated in some parts of

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

(A)

13

Probability distribution

0.3

8

Probability

0.4

= f (ei) i=0

0.2 0.1 0.0 Variable

(B)

1

n

2

1

n

3

2

n 4

1 2 3

3

14 13

13

11

P

4

6 n

14

12

14

5

4

5 1 2

7

3

1

n 12 8 5 11 14

10

6 7

2

9

4 8

10

39

13

5 6

4 7

13

6

14

5

11

9

10

6

13

12

7

12

11

8 10 n

7

11 10

9

8

9

∞

such patterns more than others. The means, modes, and medians of the distributions indicate central tendencies that characterize the group of species represented; these are statistical characteristics of the group. The spread or dispersal of species across measures of a species-level characteristic reveals the variability among species. The limits to that natural variation are represented in the tails on either side of the curve and are measured in terms of statistical confidence limits that are also characteristic of the pattern (Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Abnormality can be identified among outlying observations.

1.3.1 Illustrating the methodology The species with populations in ecosystems (specified geographic areas), or any other species assemblage occur in macroecological patterns (Belgrano

8

Figure 1.4 Patterns as they are products of, and account for, complexity. A. Representation of typical probability distribution as a function (f) of all factors (ei) that contribute to its formation; species frequency distributions are empirically based graphs to which a probability curve can be applied. B. Every pattern (e.g., P, in the large dark circle) is a product of, and accounts for, all factors that contribute to its formation (the infinite set of interacting factors represented by the arrows depicting reciprocity by their being double-headed).

and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Perez 1999) as emergent structure. The full Bering Sea is a marine ecosystem located north of the Aleutian Islands, between Russia on the west and mainland Alaska on the east. For our purposes, a subsection of the ecosystem, the eastern Bering Sea, is somewhat arbitrarily defined as the area east of a line from Attu Island (western Aleutian Islands) in the south to the center of the Bering Strait in the north (Perez and McAlister 1993, see map in Fig. 1.5)—this is the ecosystem revisited in subsequent chapters. The area and its history are described in reports such as that of the NRC (1996). The eastern Bering Sea ecosystem is of great value to humans; it provides ecosystem services to all species involved. Science has documented changes of concern. Recent commercial harvests of fish have taken millions of tons annually from a variety of resource species, and several species of

14

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

Chukchi sea Bering Strait

Russia Gulf of Anadyr

Norton Sound Yukon St. Lawrence l.

Cape

Delta

Alaska

Navarin St. Matthew l.

200 m

Karaginsky Bay

Eastern Bering Sea

Western Bering Sea

Kuskokwim Bay Bristol Bay

la

su

in

Pribilof Is. a

sk

n Pe

la

A

Unimak I.

Commander Is.

Attu I.

Al

eu tian Islands

Figure 1.5 Map of the Bering Sea showing the demarcation between the eastern Bering Sea (east of the straight line) and the western Bering Sea (Perez and McAlister 1993).

marine mammals have been harvested intensively. Changes have been observed in the composition of fish species. The population of walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) has been observed to be declining in the last several years (Ianellli et al. 2006). Marine mammal populations have declined and one species, the Steller’s sea cow, went extinct in recorded history. These and other impacts of human activities (e.g., pollution, oceanic acidification, global warming) have generated a great deal of concern. Several species of marine mammals are subject to legal protection owing to their low numbers. The patterns shown in Figure 1.6 for the eastern Bering Sea (based on Perez and McAlister 1993) characterize only one of the many facets of any ecosystem. This first example demonstrates variabil-

ity among the population sizes of marine mammal species based on numbers of individuals in thousands (top panel, and log10 raw numbers bottom panel), averaged over seasons. Figure 1.6 also demonstrates limits to natural variation in population size among species, especially as exhibited in the lower panel. Figure 1.7 shows a different pattern with its variability and limits. It involves the same set of 20 marine mammal species as represented in Figure 1.6. In this case, we see the biomass consumed annually as estimated for the populations of these species. This graph also shows options for expressing measures of consumption. In this graph, consumption is represented from individual species (walleye pollock, top row), finfish (a group of species, second row), and the entire eastern Bering Sea

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

Portion of species

(A) 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0

0

100

200 300 400 Population size (1000s)

500

Portion of species

(B) 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

log10 (population size) Figure 1.6 A species frequency distribution from the eastern Bering Sea, showing variability in population size among 20 marine mammal species. The raw data displayed in A are shown in log10 scale in panel B. (From Fowler and Perez 1999, Perez and McAlister 1993; see Appendix 1.3 for details.)

(an ecosystem, bottom row). It demonstrates two modes of presentation (raw measures and log transformed values), and gives measures of consumption rates by humans (harvests, in the right column) for comparison. Importantly, this graph introduces the kinds of data useful to the combination of singlespecies, multispecies, and ecosystem components of systemic management (Fowler 2002). Fowler and Hobbs (2002) review published accounts of the basis for Management Tenet 5— the need to do what can be done to avoid abnormality. Management at the individual level is based on this tenet when action is taken to ensure that characteristics such as body temperature, blood pressure, respiration rate, food consumption, and heart rate fall within the normal range of natural variation in the practice of medicine. Applying this tenet to the harvests of walleye pollock (Fig. 1.7), a

15

single-species application of systemic management in the eastern Bering Sea, would mean reducing takes. The multispecies and ecosystem applications are seen in the changes indicated by the second and third rows of Figure 1.7. We begin to see the extent of both the problems and needed change: there are orders of magnitude in the differences between consumption rates by humans and the mean of consumption rates among other species. This challenge is further complicated by the need to comply with the other tenets of management. There are other management questions to be addressed. What would sustainable harvest rates be in the absence of abnormal anthropogenic influence? Such influence (e.g., harvesting, global warming, pollution) on nonhuman species may have resulted in reduced populations. Patterns based on data for species subject to such influence would lead to indications of what is sustainable now, but may exaggerate measures of human abnormality for circumstances free of abnormal human influence. Figure 1.8, for example, shows that the biomass of cetaceans in the entire Bering Sea ecosystem in the 1980s/1990s was estimated to be about 20% of levels found there in the mid-1940s (Sobolevsky and Mathisen 1996). The same study determined that corresponding declines in population numbers (total for all cetaceans) resulted in populations in the 1990s that were about 64% of earlier levels. The most significant changes in the Bering Sea involve the extinction of the Steller’s sea cow and marked reductions in sei and blue whales (the latter assumed to be represented by only small numbers of individuals in Fig. 1.8). Figure 1.8 exemplifies changes in population size and increases in the variation among species similar to changes observed in other disturbed ecosystems. These changes are part of what we take into account when we use other species as empirical examples of sustainability to adhere to Management Tenet 5. Estimates of consumption rates based on data from the 1940s, although still biased by human influence, would clearly serve as a better frame of reference for sustainable harvests from an ecosystem free of abnormal human influence—something we might achieve decades down the road. Figure 1.7 reflects human influence (e.g., values or belief systems, harvesting, pollution, global warming, politics)

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

Portion of species

Raw data 0.6

Pollock

0.4 0.2 0.4 0.8 1.2 1.6 2.0 Biomass consumed (105 t/yr)

0.6

Portion of species

0.0 0.0

Finfish

0.4 0.2 0.0

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0

0

1 2 3 4 5 Biomass consumed (105 t/yr)

Portion of species

Portion of species

Portion of species

Portion of species

16

E. Bering Sea

0

2

4

6

Biomass consumed

8

10

12

(105 t/yr)

Log transformed data 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

Humans

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

0.3 0.2

Humans

0.1 0.0

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

Humans

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

Figure 1.7 Species frequency distributions representing patterns in the eastern Bering Sea, showing variability among marine mammal species as distributed over their estimated annual biomass consumption within this region across seasons (hundred thousand metric tons, left column; log10 metric tons, right column) for walleye pollock (consumption by six species of marine mammals, top row), finfish (by 20 species of marine mammals, second row) and the eastern Bering Sea (by 20 species of marine mammals, bottom row). These graphs are based on information from Fowler and Perez (1999), Livingston (1993), Perez and McAlister (1993). See Appendix 1.3 for details.

along with the influence of the nonhuman (current environmental and evolutionary circumstances). This information reflects sustainability today, accounting for abnormal human influence. Free of abnormal human influence, the system may be able to regain its health to exhibit the corresponding sustainability.

1.3.2 Posing management questions Management applied to ecosystems requires the ability to ask appropriate, but very specific, questions (Belgrano and Fowler 2008; Fig. 1.1). For the eastern Bering Sea example, we can start with questions regarding sustainability at the ecosystem level. These include: How much biomass can sustainably be removed by humans? How much biomass should be left for other species?

●

●

How many species can sustainably be harvested as resources? What is the appropriate allocation of biomass removal over the various trophic levels (what portion of the harvested biomass would come from each trophic level)?

●

●

Within the ecosystem, other questions apply to harvests of individual species: How much biomass (or how many individual organisms) can sustainably be harvested from any particular resource species’ population? What is an appropriate size or age composition for the harvest of any particular species (how should the harvest be allocated over size or age)?

●

●

Other questions relate to other factors both scientists and other stakeholders believe are important: How do we account for change and the fact that humans have caused change?

●

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

Portion of species

0.6

1940s

0.4 0.3 0.2

●

0.1

●

–1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 log10 (biomass, metric tons)

7

8

Portion of species

0.6 0.5

1990s

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

–1

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 log10 (biomass, metric tons)

7

8

Figure 1.8 A species frequency distribution representing the entire Bering Sea, showing variability in population biomass among cetacean (whale) species (averaged across seasons, from Sobolevsky and Mathisen 1996; see Appendix 1.3 for details). This figure compares distributions for the late 1940s (top panel) and the late 1980s and early 1990s (bottom panel).

How do we account for evolutionary impacts of our harvesting on each individual resource species? How do we account for the trophic level, body size, or metabolic rate of humans? How do we account for broad temporal and spatial scales without discounting or failing to consider the finer resolution involved in consideration of individuals, molecules, elements, behavior, habitat heterogeneity, and energy dynamics (Carpenter 2002)? How do we account for species-level dynamics like that involved in extinction and speciation?

●

●

●

●

Still other questions relate to human institutions and constructs in the context of the laws of nature: How do we account for economics in decision making?

●

How do we resolve differences in management advice stemming from different sciences as conventionally applied? (For example, widely different quotas for harvests are suggested from the perspectives of population dynamics, behavior, evolution, and oceanography.) Does one form of science result in more reliable advice than another? How do we avoid ignoring or discounting any of the relevant sciences that might provide relevant information to management?

●

0.5

0.0

17

In the chapters ahead, we address questions like these. Such questions serve as effective starting points for the process of refinement; management questions are refined so that relevant issues are accounted for directly. The way we ask both management questions and science questions is very important—there must be a match or isomorphism (consonance,13 Belgrano and Fowler 2008) between them. Initial questions must be refined to directly account for complexity. Clear questions lead to science that reveals the pattern on which management can be based. The next step is, of course, implementing what we learn from those patterns. This is where one of the many differences between conventional management and systemic management becomes central to understanding the changes we need to make. The eastern Bering Sea again provides examples. In this ecosystem, one of the main institutions involved in management is the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Fisheries and marine mammals are also managed under the terms established by legislation and institutions such as the International Whaling Commission. Groups of scientists provide information. Other nongovernmental organizations are involved; these include the World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, various indigenous peoples, and groups representing the fishing industry. There are political and economic forces represented in each case. Fish are consumed by the people involved. These groups, their values and consumption are part of the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem (Management Tenet 1). In conventional management, the debate among organizations, institutions, and individuals, such as those listed above, is a process of selecting and

18

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

digesting scientific, economic, and social information to define management objectives (step 4, top row, Fig. 1.1) rather than to ask a clear management question (or questions, step 2, bottom row, Fig. 1.1). Stakeholders are doing what they genuinely believe is the best job possible in established ways of accounting for the complexity of factors needed to make a decision. Legislation allows (in many ways encourages or even requires) stakeholders to put economic values ahead of sustainability or to place primacy on economic sustainability. Such debate, evaluations, and conversion of information involves a recombination of fragmented information that is not only vulnerable to error, but ultimately impossible (involving what has elsewhere been called the Humpty-Dumpty syndrome, Fowler 2003). In the process, the bulk of reality gets ignored or misinterpreted; piecemeal tidbits of information that science provides are selectively converted to management advice. Human limitations prevent fully adhering to Management Tenet 3. Systemically, this management process is one of the factors contributing to the patterns we see; humans are part of the system (Management Tenet 1). The abnormal take of fish in the eastern Bering Sea (Fig. 1.7) is a direct product of conventional management policy—a harvest certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (another human institution) in spite of the pathology involved in its being abnormal in comparison to that of other species. The pattern of human abnormality can be directly tied to such actions as contributing factors; denial of problems contributes to their being problems. Systemic management puts stakeholders in an entirely different role regarding policy. Stakeholder involvement remains critical but is confined to the posing of clear management questions so that science can proceed to its task of revealing objective patterns matching the management questions (Fig. 1.1, Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Politics, economics, and human values are given objective consideration in the decision-making process based on these patterns—such factors are inherent to the patterns by being contributing factors in their emergence (Fig. 1.4). Thus, patterns account for the effects of anthropogenic factors along with the remaining set of factors important to manage-

ment (the infinite of Fig. 1.4—reality). Included are evolutionary and coevolutionary forces, and other elements of the set of realities involved in the emergence of the patterns we see. The sample patterns presented for the eastern Bering Sea in this chapter provide tantalizing insight into how systemic management works. Before delving into more detail, it is necessary to develop more about the foundation on which systemic management is based. It is important to appreciate the variety among, and within, specieslevel patterns and how they represent complexity. We need to understand better how patterns are natural phenomena that emerge from and reflect complexity—how they represent cybernetic information that accounts for complexity (Plate 1.2) so that stakeholders, scientists, and managers confine their roles to those in the bottom row of Figure 1.1. Then we can proceed toward a more thorough understanding of how patterns serve as guidance for systemic management. We need a deeper appreciation of the ways patterns account for human influence. With this understanding we can then explore how species-level patterns provide answers to questions such as those raised above, as well as ways to analyze patterns and choose appropriate sets of species to be most informative.

1.4 Summary and preview 1.4.1 Summary This book draws upon work accomplished in various fields of science and integrates the work of ecologists with that of paleontologists, theoretical statisticians, complex or whole systems theorists, and philosophers of science—not to make management decisions, but to find a way in which objective guidance can be found. It introduces the practice of systemic management based on the tenets of management synthesized from the decades-long attempt to define principles for management. Conventional management has been largely transitive management of things like resources, wildlife, ecosystems, pests; systemic management is intransitive management of our interactions with all other systems (Management Tenet 2; Fowler 2003). Our management of human interactions

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

with ecosystems is the ecosystem-based component of systemic management. In systemic management, empirical examples of sustainability are the source of guidance, particularly as they fall into informative integrative patterns. Human concepts or constructs are confined to those most directly relevant to observing, representing, and analyzing natural patterns. The representation of guiding information is exemplified by frequency (or probability) distributions, but, for management, only those directly matching specific management questions. Patterns and questions must be consonant (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Smith 2004) to be consistent (Management Tenet 4). Patterns illustrate variation and its limits, completely accounting for all complexity (Fig. 1.4, Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler 2003, Fowler and Crawford 2004, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Frequency distributions for various species-level characteristics incorporate direct consideration of natural processes such as selective extinction and speciation (Fowler and MacMahon 1982). The examples provided by other species collectively result in a measure of what sustainability looks like (for each management question) so that we not only learn from nature, but also identify problems to be solved in management. These examples show how unsustainable the human species has become in our participation and interaction with other biological systems (e.g., other species, multispecies groups, ecosystems, and the biosphere). In the practical applications that emerge, systemic management is demonstrated as a path toward sustainable human existence. In the end we are left with the question: can we, as a species, make the changes necessary to function sustainably?14 Among humans, a species-level self consciousness is just now beginning to emerge. Comparing ourselves with other species has the potential of awakening in humanity both a sense of what we need to do as a species and the ability to do it.

1.4.2 Preview The structure of the book builds toward practical application. It first sets the stage by introducing a variety of patterns and how they are formed,

19

especially as the selectivity of extinction and speciation contribute to their emergence. More detail concerning the flaws of conventional management are followed by in-depth consideration of systemic management as a preferable alternative, especially in terms of setting objectives. The epilogue considers systemic management with a measure of philosophy, in part addressing alternatives for action to achieve objectives. The specific example for the eastern Bering Sea, introduced above and developed further at the end of each chapter, illustrates ecosystem-based management as one part of systemic management. Single-species approaches are also part of systemic management and they too are exemplified in examples from the eastern Bering Sea as are multispecies applications. Other examples will include direct application of systemic management to the genetic effects of commercial fishing and in regard to the use of marine protected areas. One of the underlying assumptions of this book is that human constructs show varying degrees of reliability in providing guidance for management. Among the best of what we produce are representations of empirical examples of sustainability directly matched with (consonant with) specific management questions. The more models (opinions and values) are restricted to partial indirectly related information, the more misleading they are. The most reliable guidance comes from direct observation of nature itself—as long as the observations are confined to the issue, dimensions, and logical type of the management question being asked (Belgrano and Fowler 2008).15 This assumption is fundamental to the contrast between systemic management and conventional management; in the latter, human limitations (amplified in Chapter 4) give rise to erroneous management. The paragraphs below summarize the focus of each of the following chapters. Chapter 2 presents the study of variation and its limits as demonstrated in patterns among species (see also, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Macroevolutionary patterns are introduced as emergent from the combined forces of nature, including not only human influence, but very importantly, both nonevolutionary and evolutionary processes. They demonstrate that ecosystems

20

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

(or any other species assemblage) have boundaries, limits, and form—elements of structure or order with genotypic as well as phenotypic nature. These patterns are natural phenomena that represent the evolved nature of ecosystems and other natural systems to which nonevolutionary factors also contribute (Fig. 1.4); they are emergent.2 As such, these patterns reflect the complexity that must be accounted for in management, and illustrate sustainability at the species level so as to provide guidance for human action. Chapter 3 explores selective extinction and speciation as contributing factors in the formation (emergence) of species frequency distributions— factors that cannot be ignored in considering the complexity of reality (Management Tenet 3, Appendix 1.1). Historical consideration includes a comparison of the dynamics of selectivity among species and similar dynamics among individuals in the analogous processes of natural selection at each level, including the environmental factors that elicit selectivity. The risk of our own extinction is considered in this context. The appendices to Chapter 3 describe the mechanics of selective extinction and speciation, in combination with evolution through natural selection at other levels, to illustrate how they count among the factors contributing to the emergence of patterns in the composition of species within ecosystems and the biosphere—the characteristics of such systems. Chapter 4 presents a detailed accounting of the problems we encounter in conventional thinking and management. Such management falls short of adhering to most of the tenets of management individually, and fails completely to adhere to all of them simultaneously, consistently, or objectively. We fail to account for complexity and we ignore the human limits that lead to this failure. Comparisons are drawn between conventional and systemic management at various levels of biological organization, and corresponding lessons, learned historically, concerning what can and cannot be done. Chapter 5 provides more detail regarding the ways systemic management adheres to the tenets of management, objectively, simultaneously, and consistently. Pattern-based management accounts for the infinite of complexity—reality. Systemic management is reality-based management. The

implications are considered insofar as they are challenges we humans face as a species and how the potential can be evaluated in regard to what we are, and how we function, as a species. Our ways of thinking are inherent to the differences between conventional and systemic management. Thus, the chapter also looks toward the future with a brief consideration of some of the human complexity involved in changes needed for sustainability. Guidance is found by refining questions systemically to guide the science needed to provide information-based goals needing no translation or conversion. Objectivity is achieved by converting the role of stakeholder from that of information conversion in conventional management, to asking management questions in systemic management (Fig. 1.1). Chapter 6 deals with species-level patterns as sources of information for practical application (Management Tenets 5 and 7), considering humans, along with other species, as parts of ecosystems and the biosphere (Management Tenet 1). This simultaneously allows for and requires an evaluation of ourselves and our needs as a species, by accounting for the probability of our own extinction. This chapter stresses the likelihood that conventional thinking may be one of the world’s biggest problems. It is behind both a variety of risks to our own species as well as those to the world’s ecosystems and the biosphere. It involves the magnitude of the human population. The related problems are numerous—for example, overconsumption, habitat destruction, extinction, and CO2 production. If we are to avoid the abnormal or pathological through human change, it must include the systemic of human change, including our thinking on a global scale. The book’s Epilogue provides a more subjective look at the challenges of implementing systemic management and the responsibilities to be shared among humans: organizations, scientists, political and religious leaders, and all of us as individuals. While there is hope that it can occur, there is substantive basis for suggesting that it is beyond human adaptability; scientists may continue more in the role of documenting and observing the results of our management than in guiding human endeavor. On the other hand, it is possible that we

SYS T EM I C M A N AG EM EN T— W H AT A N D W H Y?

have evolved to be sufficiently unique in our capacity to embrace the wisdom of experience and empirical evidence of what works to make a difference and actually achieve sustainability. Readers who want to know conclusions first, and then develop an understanding of their foundation, may choose to read Chapters 5 and 6 before the others. The mathematically inclined will find value in the models of selective extinction and

21

speciation in the appendices to Chapter 3; personal experience with building and exploring such models is highly recommended. The visually inclined will appreciate the graphic illustration of empirically observed information in Chapter 2, corresponding to model-generated probability distributions in Chapter 3 and elsewhere, as well as the measures of human abnormality in Chapter 6.

CHAPTER 2

Patterns among species: information

But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall teach thee; or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. — Job 12:7–8

This chapter presents a variety of patterns found among species. Some represent ecosystem structure while others depict ecosystem function. Among the latter are patterns in relationships. Such relationships involve interactions among species as well as between species and systems such as ecosystems and the biosphere—systems of which they are a part. Each pattern exemplifies the kinds of things science discovers, then attempts to characterize, explain, understand, and use in making predictions. The objectives of this chapter include: Establishing the fact that ecosystems and the biosphere have structure and function seen in macroecological patterns, many of which have yet to be discovered and characterized. Illustrating how macroecological patterns provide an empirical basis for evaluating and measuring the abnormality among species. Developing the concept of emergence behind the formation of patterns as the basis for understanding patterns as integrative of the complexity we need to account for in management. Defining the best available scientific information for management: patterns that match the management questions (i.e., are consonant1 with management questions). ●

●

●

●

A secondary objective is to define the best kind of science in the service of management as the science that discovers, characterizes, and analyzes patterns that are consonant with management questions. In the paragraphs ahead, we will see that the value of a pattern lies in its information (Fowler 22

2008); each pattern embodies limits to natural variation reflective of, and accounting for, the complexity behind their formation (Fig. 1.4; emergence, Belgrano and Fowler 2008). By using this information we can identify the abnormal. Species, like everything else, show variation, but always variation confined by limits. Variation among species occurs within any set of species whether it is a taxonomic group, a community, a guild, a species within a given ecosystem, or species of a particular body size. Linking information with management is of crucial importance (Management Tenet 7, Chapter 1). This involves finding patterns consonant with management questions (Belgrano and Fowler 2008; Fowler 2003, 2008)—a step in management introduced with examples for the eastern Bering Sea in Chapter 1. Patterns can be used to guide human action to avoid abnormality in achieving systemic health (Belgrano and Fowler 2008; Management Tenet 5, Chapter 1). Following a brief introduction to patterns involving single species-level characteristics, this chapter illustrates variation within limits for two, three, and four or more species-level dimensions as they relate to each other. Correlative multidimensional patterns provide for overt treatment of factors identified in management questions—identified in Step 2 of Systemic Management, Figure 1.1, as questions get refined (made more specific). The chapter concludes with a return to the eastern Bering Sea example after a summary of some of the processes known to contribute to the formation

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

2.1 Patterns among species Patterns are central to adhering to Management Tenet 5, Chapter 1. Limits cannot be ignored; limits help identify abnormality. Within species assemblies, patterns materialize, in part, because variation is limited (Fowler and Hobbs 2002)— inherently accounting for all factors that contribute to variation and its limits. Form, shape, and structure are characteristic of patterns bounded by limits. These are especially prominent in relationships found in covariation or correlation among two or more measures or species. Although not a major focus of this book, patterns also occur among species assemblies. In other words, there are similarities from group to group just as there are patterns within various sets of species. Systems such as ecosystems can be assessed using information regarding patterns among groups of species—patterns (among patterns) that promote the identification of abnormality among ecosystems. Macroecological patterns are receiving increasing attention in the scientific literature (e.g., Brown 1995, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Lawton 1999, Rosenzweig 1995, Appendix 2.1). The sample of species-level attributes considered in this chapter, and the general literature on macroecology, point toward a broader set of measures yet to be tapped and in need of attention—especially as patterns matching management questions. Science in search of explanation often emphasizes ecological mechanics and the flow of materials and energy (thermodynamics). Their importance is recognized in combination with evolutionary forces—all contributing to the emergence of macroecological patterns. Following advances made in recent decades, more attention is being paid to the effects of natural selection at the species level as it contributes to macroecological patterns, as will be seen in Chapter 3, especially in terms of the structure and function of ecosystems and the biosphere—ecosystem- and biosphere-level properties.

2.1.1 Single species-level characteristics This section uses patterns among species to illustrate limits to natural variation in a variety of individual species-level characteristics ranging from body size and trophic level to predation rates, consumption, geographic range, population size, and density dependence. Brief consideration is given to the explanatory role of science and the matter of finding consonance between patterns and management questions wherein each question is matched with a specific pattern. 2.1.1.1 Body size Expressed in raw numbers, small species are extremely prevalent worldwide (May 1978, 1986). Over 99% (probably over 99.9%) of all species fall within the lower 0.1% of the known size range.2 Viruses, for example, are about 24 orders of magnitude smaller than blue whales and about 21 orders of magnitude smaller than humans. Even insects, such as the honey bee, are about nine orders of magnitude smaller than blue whales. Nearly all known species are smaller than humans. Examples 3 of patterns in body size usually involve samples from specific taxonomic groups and environments. Most show forms similar to that seen in Figures 2.1 and 2.2. Figure 2.2 demonstrates how patterns can vary among dissimilar environments—patterns are contingent on such circumstances. Although the distribution of body size is obviously different in comparing patterns between 0.3 Portion of species

of patterns—processes that are accounted for by patterns when used in management to avoid the abnormal.

23

0.2

0.1

0.0 0.0

1.0

2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 log10 (body size, g)

6.0

7.0

Figure 2.1 The pattern of body size among North American mammals (mass in grams in log10 scale, modified from Brown and Nicoletto 1991).

24

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

marine and terrestrial habitats, there is a similarity to the shape of such distributions. Existing data show such similarity across a wide variety of taxa. As emphasized by Brown and Nicoletto (1991), the mode of frequency distributions for body size among animals is at the lower end of the distribution with a long upper tail and a short or truncated lower tail. Some patterns have more than one mode as seen in both Figures 2.1 and 2.2. The means of body size distributions vary with taxonomic group, environment, and other factors. Plants also show patterns in body size much like those observed for animals. As with animals, most species of plants are small (Aarssen et al. 2006, Whitmore 1980) making the overall pattern one that crosses trophic categories. Within the overall pattern there are contributions to observed variation specific to a variety of factors, including trophic level. Discovery, observation, and characterization of patterns (e.g., Figs 2.1 and 2.2) are among the kinds

Portion of species

(A) 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 log10 (body mass, kg)

Portion of species

(B) 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 log10 (body mass, kg) Figure 2.2 A comparison of patterns in body mass among (A) marine mammals and (B) terrestrial mammals (Damuth 1987, Fowler and Perez 1999).

of things done in the practice of science—often defined as the goals of science. Similarities, as well as differences, among patterns raise curiosity. Why are species frequency distributions involving body size of the shape shown in Figures 2.1 and 2.2? Why are there not more large species? Such questions involve explanation—another of the roles of science in understanding nature. Evolutionary forces predominate in the minds of many; species of large body size are probably more prone to extinction than are their smaller counterparts (Chapter 3, Aarssen et al. 2006). Most of the research following the original discovery and publication of empirically observed patterns has been explanatory. However, complexity and human limitations preclude complete exhaustively detailed explanation and understanding of patterns—a full explanation is impossible. From a systemic point of view, patterns observed in nature are understood as products of all of the factors involved in their origin (Belgrano and Fowler 2008), including natural selection at all levels. This involves the entire suite of factors that make up the complexity of reality; patterns are emergent from this reality (the infinite in Fig. 1.4; Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Crawford 2004). This is true whether or not we can identify, study, name, or assign their relative importance to all contributing factors. The higher risk of extinction among larger bodied species emphasizes the importance of asking management questions in such a way that body size is taken into account (especially owing to the fact that we humans are large bodied; Boulter 2002). For example, what is a sustainable harvest rate from a resource species that has a mean adult body mass of 200 kg? As humans, with an adult body mass of approximately 68 kg, what is a sustainable consumption rate of resources from the biosphere for species of that size? 2.1.1.2 Trophic level Within ecosystems, primary consumers tend to outnumber primary producers and secondary consumers; the number of species tends to drop on either side of the trophic level represented by primary consumers. The decline from this mode through higher trophic levels has been shown in the majority of sets of species that have been

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

examined. There are few, if any, species at very high trophic levels; food chains longer than 15 species are rare if they exist at all (Cohen et al. 1986). Thus, the pyramid of numbers of individuals (fewer at higher trophic levels) is accompanied by a pyramid of numbers of species (Anderson and Kikkawa 1986), usually on a narrow base of primary producers. This is clearly illustrated by data from Schoenly et al. (1991), as shown in Figure 2.3. These data, from 95 insect-dominated food webs, show the frequency distribution of species within these webs according to trophic level. In parallel with other studies, the bulk (over 95%) of the species from these webs are in the lower four trophic levels. The drop in species numbers above the trophic level occupied by primary consumers is nearly ubiquitous. Among terrestrial mammals of the southwestern United States, Patterson (1984) showed that herbivorous species outnumber insectivores and carnivores combined. Among the terrestrial mammals of North America, almost 200 (~74%) are herbivores and about 70 (~26%) are carnivores (Brown 1981). Other samples of mammalian species show the same pattern (e.g., Kelt and Van Vuren 2001) as is the case for other studies involving insects (Erwin 1982, 1983; May 1990). Such patterns are frequently observed in the literature on food webs.4 The explanatory aspect of science views evolutionary history as a primary component in

25

the origin of the distribution of species across trophic level. Also, contributing to these patterns, of course, are the effects of energy depletion and availability, especially in setting upper limits to trophic level. Superimposed on this are the effects of increasing risks of extinction at higher trophic levels (Fowler and MacMahon 1982). These begin the list of factors contributing to the origin of patterns in trophic level—patterns observed and characterized by science. How can we account for trophic level in management decisions? Management needs to ask questions such as: What is the sustainable harvest of resource species found at the fourth trophic level? How should our consumption of resources be allocated over resources at various trophic levels? How many different trophic levels should be involved in our consumption of resources? 2.1.1.3 Number of consumers Another focus of science has been to count the number of consumer species for which a species serves as a resource. Figure 2.4 demonstrates limits to the variation in such counts. In this case, the number of predators is very limited, possibly because this sample is restricted geographically and treats only the macro-predators (i.e., pathogens and parasites are not included). Does the number of consumers per prey species change (increase or decrease) with body size? Potentially, the number of predators decreases and the number of parasites

0.7 0.6 Portion of species

Portion of species

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.1

0.0 0.0

1

2

3

4 5 Trophic level

6

7

8

Figure 2.3 The distribution of species across trophic level for 95 insect-dominated food webs from Schoenly et al. (1991).

0

1 2 3 4 Number of predators

5

Figure 2.4 Frequency distribution of species according to the number of predators that consume them based on data for 95 insect-dominated foodwebs from Schoenly et al. (1991).

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

and pathogens increases. For example, there are at least 36 species for which the northern fur seal serves as a resource; only about three species are predators while there are 16 species of bacteria that occur internally and 17 species of parasites (Fowler 1998). The findings of food web analysis indicate that the number of predator species per prey species is less than would be expected if predator–prey relationships were assigned randomly within a community. The number of consumer species feeding upon each resource species is a form of interaction measured as part of connectivity. The results of food web research consistently show that consumer–resource interactions are only a very small subset of the total possible interactions within any set of species. The number of predatory consumer species per resource species appears to be roughly constant regardless of the number of species in the sample or the number of species in the assemblages themselves (Cohen and Newman 1988, May 1983, McNaughton 1978, Paine 1988, Pimm 1982, Pimm and Kitching 1988, Sugihara et al. 1989, Yodzis 1980). Science may be able to partially explain patterns such as those in numbers of predatory species per resource species, but are the explanations sufficient to address management questions? What is the sustainable harvest of a resource species already serving as a resource for eight other consumers? What is the sustainable harvest from a predatory resource species in competition with five other predators that consume a common resource species? 2.1.1.4 Interaction strength The influence of one species on others can be measured in a variety of ways, one of which is shown in Figure 2.5 (Bascompte et al. 2005, similar to the work of Paine 1992, Appendix Fig. 2.1.4). The work of Bascompte et al. (2005), like many other cases, involves numerous cases wherein interactions involve groups of species treated collectively (as though the group is assumed to be a species). However, there are also cases of individual species interacting with other individual species. The overall pattern, despite this inconsistency, is that expected for strictly species-by-species

measurements, although its shape and the range of variation would be expected to change when interaction strength is measured for an entire species (rather than simply for individuals). It is highly likely that the pattern of interaction strength shown in Figure 2.5 is a general pattern (similar to a normal distribution) with an intermediate maximum surrounded by fewer species toward the extremes—natural variability (Power et al. 1996) within bounds. When we humans influence other species, at what level can we influence them sustainably? Clearly, this will depend on the kind of impact (e.g., competition, pollution, consumption, or habitat modification). Too much impact could result in reduced resources with a variety of ecosystem-level effects. When the impacts involve services upon which we depend, too little could result in an unsustainably low human population. When we ask such questions, the patterns used to address them must involve interaction measured in the same units to achieve the consistency required by Management Tenet 4, Chapter 1. Individual humans as well as our species depend on resources for their existence, and both individuals and our species have influence on other species. Here, we encounter the importance of distinguishing measures for individuals and those for species—two different logical types (individuals are parts of species).

0.20 Portion of “species”

26

0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00

–8 –7 –6 –5 –4 –3 –2 –1 Interaction strength

0

1

Figure 2.5 The pattern among 249 “species/trophic groups” in the strength of their interactions (log portion of prey biomass consumed per capita, n = 3313) with other species/groups within a Caribbean marine ecosystem (Bascompte et al. 2005).

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

2.1.1.5 Predation/consumption rates One specific measure of interaction between species is the rates at which predators consume their resource species. Figure 2.6 shows patterns (as frequency distributions) in the rates at which nonhuman vertebrate species consume walleye pollock (T. chalcogramma) in the eastern Bering Sea. In this case, the interaction is measured as the fraction of the standing stock that they consumed in the 1980s (Fowler et al. 1999, Livingston 1993, and Livingston personal comm., 1994). Note that in this section, the measure is that of consumption rate per species, rather than the per capita consumption shown in Figure 2.5; this is an important difference in units as it involves an important element of consonance—logical typing (the distinction between a part and whole, here individual compared to species). The top panel of Figure 2.6 shows the distribution of population-level consumption rates as measured for each species according to biomass

and the lower panel according to numbers of individuals consumed. These data do not include the numerous parasites and disease organisms for which walleye pollock also serve as a resource species, but include more than the six species of marine mammals represented in the top row of Figure 1.7. Also, these data represent conditions across only part of the geographic range of walleye pollock, an ecosystem; as such, measures of consumption apply to populations of both consumers and resources measured for these populations on a species-by-species basis. The consuming species represented in Figure 2.6 are those that are classically defined as predators on walleye pollock, that is, species that ingest complete or large parts of the bodies of individual walleye pollock. For these species, the mode in their consumption rates occurs at quite low levels (less than 0.4% based on biomass, and 10% for numbers). This is in spite of the fact that the data for this figure

0.4 Pollock biomass

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

Portion of species

Portion of species

0.6 0.5

Pollock numbers

0.1

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Portion of standing stock consumed (numbers)

Portion of species

Portion of species

0.2 0.1

–7.0 –6.0 –5.0 –4.0 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 log10 (portion biomass consumed)

0.4

0.2

0.0

0.3

0.0

0.002 0.006 0.010 0.014 0.018 0.022 Portion of standing stock consumed (biomass)

0.4 0.3

27

0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

–4.0 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 1.0 log10 (portion numbers consumed)

Figure 2.6 Patterns in the annual consumption rates among nonhuman vertebrate species that consumed walleye pollock ( Theragra chalcogramma) in the eastern Bering Sea in the 1980s. Annual consumption rates are expressed as fraction of standing stock of walleye pollock biomass (top row) and numbers consumed (bottom row). The left column is for raw measures (one consumption rate of 1.4 is omitted for numbers) and the right column is in log10 scale (from Livingston 1993 and pers. comm.).

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

example, shows patterns in consumption for the northwest Atlantic for a group of fish species (A) and for an ecosystem (B)—another set of examples crossing the hierarchical structure of natural systems. The consumption rates for four individual prey (or resource) species in this ecosystem are shown in Appendix Figure 2.1.5. Note that the top panel in Figure 2.7 represents consumption by all vertebrates (fish, birds, and mammals that feed on the four resource species), while the bottom panel represents consumption (from the entire ecosystem) by 24 species of homeotherms (i.e., marine mammals and seabirds). Figure 2.7 raises a question about diet composition (see also Appendix Figs 2.1.5 and 2.1.6B). What fraction of the diet of each predator is composed of each individual resource species? The allocation of consumption over alternative resource species also falls into patterns so as to exhibit limits, as with

(A) 0.20 Portion of species

are determined as a fraction of the harvestablesized pollock, which are only a part of the overall population.5 Consumption rates as represented in Figures 1.7 and 2.6 fall into such patterns within any ecosystem. For example, Appendix Figure 2.1.5 illustrates the patterns in consumption rates among nonhuman vertebrate predatory species in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in their take of four prey species. Figures 1.7 and 2.6 also exemplify the whole/part (hierarchical) structure of consumption ranging from that experienced by individual species, through consumption from species groups, to consumption within ecosystems. The explanation of observed consumption rates must include evolved characteristics such as life history traits of both the predators and the prey. Consumption rates such as those shown in Figure 2.6 represent part of a pattern in which intrinsic rates of increase (rmax, the maximum rate at which populations of the prey species can increase) contribute to limiting predation rates. Predators on any resource population cannot sustainably consume more than is produced. Production is often less than 0.3, or 30%, per year for large mammals—production which, when consumed, would be shared by the full set of predators. Predators on species with high r values (e.g., many small bodied species) would be expected to consume at higher rates—higher turnover resulting in predation rates that are orders of magnitude larger. Enright (1969) found that zooplankton consumed as much as 50% of their phytoplankton resource base per day. This larger pattern will be treated correlatively in Chapter 5. When consumption is of body parts (e.g., leaves, fins, blood, berries), rather than of entire organisms, consumption rates appear to be low. Pimentel et al. (1975) found that on average only 10% of primary production is consumed by primary consumers. Based on a count (minimum) of the number of species from a sampling of the primary sources (nine of 18 cases) there was a mean of 7.5 species per group of consumers. This implies a mean consumption rate of 1.3% expressed as a percentage of the primary production consumed annually per consuming species. Every ecosystem exhibits patterns like those represented by Figures 1.7 and 2.6. Figure 2.7, for

0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 2.0

3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

7.0

2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

7.0

(B) 0.40 Portion of species

28

0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 1.0

Figure 2.7 Patterns in consumption rates within the northwest Atlantic ecosystem showing (A) consumption of the four species shown in Appendix Figure 2.1.5 by 16 species of vertebrates and (B) total consumption within the Georges Bank ecosystem by 24 species of marine mammals and birds (from Backus and Bourne 1986).

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

harvest of biomass from the eastern Bering Sea, the Benguela ecosystem, or the Georges Bank ecosystem? What is a sustainable harvest of biomass from the biosphere? There is more to consonance than the matter of pattern and question both involving consumption. Consonance between guiding pattern and management question also involves a match in the kind of system with which we are interacting. The management questions just posed involve interactions with identified systems—steps toward consonance. Further consonance is achieved when we account for human characteristics. To explicitly account for our body size, for example, consonance is involved in the pattern shown in Figure 2.10—it

0.3 Portion of species

all patterns. This is exemplified for the portions of the diets of marine mammal consumers in the northwest Atlantic that are composed of mackerel as illustrated in Figure 2.8. Such allocations can be determined for each individual resource species within the diets of any set of consuming species (Fowler 1999a). Consumption (whether of biomass or numbers), of course, is not restricted to individual species (Fig. 2.6 and Appendix Figs 2.1.5, 2.1.6A), groups of species (Appendix Figs 2.1.6B, 2.1.7A), or ecosystems (Appendix Figs 2.1.6C, 2.1.7B). Consumption from the biosphere (hierarchically inclusive of ecosystems, or of which ecosystems are parts) also shows patterns similar to those for ecosystems. Such consumption is illustrated for biomass in Figure 2.9, which is an illustration of consumption by 55 species of marine mammals, and in Figure 2.10 as consumption by 16 species of cetaceans of near-human body size. Using the patterns of Figures 2.6–2.10 we have examples of information that can guide human interactions with the nonhuman whether it be other species, species groups, ecosystems, or the biosphere. When management questions involve sustainable levels of consumption (as a specific kind of interaction) there is consonance in the patterns (information) revealed by science when those patterns involve consumption. However, we begin to see also the option of developing management questions regarding our (human) interactions with anything in our environment. What is a sustainable

0.1

1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

9

10

Figure 2.9 Pattern in biomass consumption from the Earth’s biosphere as observed for 55 species of marine mammals (from Fowler and Perez 1999).

0.3 Portion of species

Portion of species

0.2

0.0

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 –1.5

29

–0.5 0.0 0.5 –1.0 log10 (portion of annual diet)

1.0

Figure 2.8 Pattern in the fraction of the annual diets of marine mammal species in the northwest Atlantic composed of mackerel (from Overholtz et al. 1991).

0.2

0.1

0.0

1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

9

10

Figure 2.10 Pattern in biomass consumption from the Earth’s biosphere as observed for 16 species of cetaceans within an order of magnitude of human body size (from Tamura and Ohsumi 1999).

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

2.1.1.6 Consumption of energy/production of CO2 Closely related to the consumption of biomass are the consumption of energy and the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) which also show patterns in nature. Figure 2.11 illustrates the consumption of energy per unit area for 368 species of terrestrial mammals, excluding humans. Figure 2.12 shows the production of CO2 for 63 species of mammals (21 marine and 42 terrestrial). The total annual consumption of energy for such species (Fowler 2008) has, as would be expected, an almost identical probability distribution (similarly shaped pattern) to that of CO2 production. With even a mere suspicion that CO2 production by humans is involved in global warming, we are faced with a management question regarding sustainable levels for the production of this gas. Part of the concept of consonance among patterns, science, and management involves circumstances

0.20

Portion of species

represents species of human body size. It also accounts for our common taxonomic category—all species are mammals. Thus, the patterns in this section involve identifiable consonance with the management questions raised in the last paragraph. They relate directly to the matter of our harvest of natural resources. But do these patterns account for behavioral factors, physiological processes, and coevolutionary interactions to fulfil the requirements of Management Tenet 3 (Chapter 1)? As with all patterns, explanatory factors are accounted for in the nature of the pattern. Complexity and human limitations preclude complete detailed explanation but each pattern is a product of the entire suite of contributing factors whether or not we can find them, study them, or understand them all. Patterns are integrative (Fig. 1.4, Belgrano and Fowler 2008) of all such factors, including those we cannot know. Included among these factors is the full set of human influence, both historical as well as those in today’s world where we are beginning to recognize the extent and abnormal nature of our impact. Included among such factors as they impact the patterns we observe is our consumption of energy and production of carbon dioxide resulting in influence of the kind that all species have. These factors themselves fall into patterns as seen in the next section.

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 log10 (million joules per km2 per day)

Figure 2.11 The frequency distribution of estimated energy consumption per unit area for 368 species of terrestrial mammals (from Damuth 1987, and Fowler and Perez 1999).

0.20

Portion of species

30

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00 –6.0 –5.0 –4.0 –3.0 –2.0 –1.0 0.0 1.0 2.0 log10 (million metric tons CO2)

3.0

Figure 2.12 Limits observed in the variation of estimated total CO2 production among 63 species of nonhuman mammals (from Fowler and Perez 1999).

that are common to the management question and the informative integrative pattern (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Any question about sustainability for our species involves the need for overt consideration of the fact that humans are mammals. The patterns shown in Figures 2.11 and 2.12 involve CO2 production for mammals, thus achieving consonance in this regard. In starting with the vague management questions of conventional management (e.g., “What should we do about global warming?”, top row, Fig. 1.1) refinement in systemic management (bottom row of Fig. 1.1) is a process of

2.1.1.8 Geographic range The spatial distribution of consumption leads naturally to the topic of geographic range. Consumption of resources will be distributed over regions within the geographic range of a consuming species; areas outside the geographic range are not subject to the direct effects of consumption. Samples of data available for the geographic range size of mammals in North America (excluding marine mammals) show a pattern illustrated in Figure 2.14 for nonhuman species. In this figure, species-level geographic range size is shown as both raw measures and in log scale to show that most species are concentrated around a mode at the lower end of the range of the distribution. Brown and Nicoletto (1991) present further analysis of data for North American mammals that show the same pattern. The geographic ranges of species overlap with each other as well as with areas that we consider to be ecosystems. The extent of the overlap can be

Portion of species Portion of species

2.1.1.7 Allocation of consumption over space Consumption affects both prey species and ecosystems heterogeneously over space. Consumption is allocated over space just as it is over alternative resource species, again showing variation within limits. Figure 2.13 illustrates this for the spatial allocation of resource consumption from various geographic sections of the Benguela ecosystem. Although not a trivial scientific exercise, this kind of pattern can be characterized for any ecosystem as well as the biosphere. When our management question involves spatial distribution of harvests or consumption, a consonant empirical pattern will have information with units involving distribution. How should we allocate our harvests of biomass over different areas within an ecosystem? Figure 2.13 involves units that are consonant with this question, but only insofar as it involves the spatial distribution of consumption. The management question, however, involved human action; because humans are mammals, the consonance is partial.

Portion of species

incorporating such factors directly. Contextual circumstances involve latitude. What is the sustainable level of total CO2 production for a mammalian species of human body size at the equator?

Portion of species

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

31

0.5

Northern Namibia

0.4

Mean = 30.1%

0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0

4

15

32 51 71 Percent of total

87

97

1.0

Southern Namibia

0.8

Mean = 6.8%

100

0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0

0

4

15

32 51 71 Percent of total

87

97

100

0.5

Western South Africa

0.4

Mean = 30.5%

0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0

4

15

32 51 71 Percent of total

87

97

100

0.5

Southern South Africa

0.4

Mean = 32.6%

0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0

4

15

32 51 71 Percent of total

87

97

100

Figure 2.13 The frequency distribution of consumption (arcsinscaled percent of total annual consumption) as allocated among four areas by 33 species of seabirds off the coast of Namibia and western and southern South Africa (from Crawford et al. 1991).

measured (varying from no overlap to complete overlap as portions from 0.0 to 1.0). Figure 2.15 shows the frequency distribution of overlaps in the geographic ranges of 21 species of marine mammals with the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem measured as portions of the eastern Bering Sea that fall within their geographic ranges. In all cases the full

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

Portion of species

Portion of species

32

0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 Portion of North America

0.20 0.18 0.16 0.14 0.12 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0.00 –5.75

–4.75 –3.75 –2.75 –1.75 –0.75 log10 (portion of North America)

0.25

Figure 2.14 The pattern in geographic range size for 523 North American terrestrial mammal species expressed as both the portion of North American land area occupied (top panel) and in log scale (bottom panel) (modified from Pagel et al. 1991a with data provided by M. Pagel).

Portion of species

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

0.0

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 Portion of eastern Bering Sea

1.0

Figure 2.15 The frequency distribution for geographic range overlap with the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem by 21 species of marine mammals (from Angliss and Lodge 2004, with maps and data provided by R. Outlaw and L. Johnson).

geographic ranges of individual species include areas outside of this ecosystem (ecosystems are interconnected; Guerry 2005, Plate 2.1). There are four species whose geographic ranges include the entire eastern Bering Sea (northern fur seals, Callorhinus ursinus; Steller sea lions, Eumetopias jubata; fin whales, Balaenoptera physalus; and right whales, Balaena glacialis). Thus, the pattern shown in Figure 2.15, less one species, would apply to the overlap with the geographic ranges of all four of these species. Total geographic ranges have been estimated for many species, including the 9505 species of birds in the study by Orme et al. (2006). These data, as well as data presented by Bock and Ricklefs (1983) for birds of North America show the same general pattern observed in Figure 2.14; most species are confined to small geographic ranges. Brown (1995), Rosenzweig (1995), and Gaston and Blackburn (2000) present a broad variety of patterns involving geographic range (including graphic examples) with extensive consideration of explanatory factors and primary references. The work of Orme et al. (2006) and Ruggiero and Hawkins (2006) exemplifies studies of pattern—based on global geographic factors. As with all patterns, however, an exhaustive or complete detailed explanation will remain impossible owing to the complexity of factors involved. Science has made a great deal of progress, but, owing to human limitations, a full explanation cannot be achieved. From a management perspective, however, the emergence of these patterns ensures that all explanatory factors, known or unknown, are accounted for in the information they represent (Fig. 1.4). What is the size of a sustainable geographic range? What portion of an ecosystem can sustainably be subjected to the harvest or consumption of resources? Patterns such as that in Figure 2.15 provide consonance with the latter question in representing the ecosystem in question and as information for mammalian species. The measure is of area occupied (and subject to consumption of resources)—the characteristic specified by the question. What portion of the eastern Bering Sea should be set aside in areas free of commercial fishing? To address this question, measures of area free of the direct effects of consumption would

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

be used; the consonant pattern would be that of the portion of the ecosystem that falls outside the geographic range of each species. The two questions (how much to occupy vs. how much to leave unoccupied) would be addressed with consistent information (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). 2.1.1.9 Population density Damuth (1987) and Schmid et al. (2001) present data on population density (numbers of individuals per unit area). Figure 2.16 illustrates the pattern in population density for 368 species of nonmarine mammalian herbivores (from Damuth 1987). In panel A of Figure 2.16, density is expressed in raw measurements and heavily skewed to the right (i.e., has a long right tail or is positively skewed). This is in contrast to panel B where the distribution is shown in log scale. Clearly, most species occur at the lower end of the distribution but species with

Portion of species

(A) 1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0–2

4–6 8–10 12–14 16–18 20–22 24–26 28–30 Density (1000s/k2)

(B) 0.16 Portion of species

0.14 0.12 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0.00 –1.5

–0.5

0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 log10 (density, individuals/k2)

4.5

Figure 2.16 The frequency distribution of 368 mammalian herbivore species over population density, (A) expressed as numbers (in thousands) per square km, and (B) expressed as log10 of numbers per square km (data from Damuth 1987).

33

extremely low densities are rare (panel B). Related studies stress the consistency of the pattern of Figure 2.16 within taxa and various interpretations and explanations of the pattern.6 The distribution of a large sample of species (such as those represented in a complete ecosystem, or the biosphere) would be different from that confined to mammals. The distribution would have roughly the same shape, but would appear shifted to the right because mammals, on average, occur at lower densities than other more common, smaller-bodied species such as bacteria (Peters 1983). Gaston and Blackburn (2000) present a detailed consideration of patterns in density, especially as related to birds to show some of the variability among patterns as would be involved in the pattern for all species. Patterns in density match management questions regarding density, at least insofar as density is concerned. If raising domestic animals is a sustainable endeavor, what is a sustainable density for sheep (measured, e.g., as sheep per square kilometer)? This question is asked in regard to domestic herbivorous mammals, and we see elements of consonance between the question and the patterns in this section—patterns involving herbivores. Other elements of consonance would be brought to the task in consideration of latitude, habitat type, soil, and seasonal precipitation. 2.1.1.10 Population size It is well recognized that small populations are vulnerable to extinction. This fact, in combination with the information from the previous two sections suggests that we should expect to observe few species with small total populations. There are, in fact, fewer species with small populations than species with larger populations. This is seen in a compilation of estimated total population size for species of nonhuman mammals of roughly human size (Fowler and Perez 1999, Fig. 2.17).7 Few species occur at either extreme. This sample, of course, applies only to large bodied mammalian species. Much larger total populations occur among species with smaller bodies (e.g., bacteria). Unfortunately, there are no published extensive compilations of species numbers with direct measurements of simple total population size; monitoring and assessing population size are extremely challenging

34

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

Portion of species

(A) 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 1.0

3.0

5.0 7.0 9.0 log10 (population size)

11.0

3.0

5.0 7.0 9.0 log10 (population size)

11.0

Portion of species

(B) 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 1.0

Portion of species

(C) 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 1.0

3.0

5.0 7.0 9.0 log10 (population size)

11.0

Figure 2.17 The frequency distribution of 63 species of mammals of approximately human body size as distributed over population size expressed as the logarithm of total numbers. (A) 21 species of marine mammals, (B) 42 species of terrestrial mammals, and (C) the combination of marine and terrestrial mammals in A and B (Fowler and Perez 1999, Nowak 1991, and Ridgway and Harrison 1981–1999).

scientific exercises. There is an important need for research in this regard to frame and address management and scientific questions about sustainability regarding total population size, especially for humans as will be seen in Chapter 6.

What is a sustainable population for large mammals? For any ecosystem or the biosphere, what portion of species would we normally expect to find in either tail of distributions such as that shown in Figure 2.17? The concern over endangered species leads to questions regarding the kinds of influence we have in contributing to the risks of extinction (e.g., portion of primary production monopolized, geographic range, consumption rates, CO2 production, . . . .—the beginning of an essentially unending list). Implementing Management Tenet 2 (Chapter 1), “What is a sustainable population for humans?” This question will be addressed in detail in Chapter 6, exemplifying the matter of achieving specificity while maintaining consonance in the process of refining questions. The factors that limit population size include resource availability within ecosystems in combination with the effects of predation and diseases. Much habitat is unsuitable and geographic ranges are limited. The dynamic balance that emerges from the combination of all such factors is the carrying capacity of such systems for populations. Thus, as with all patterns, patterns in population size show upper limits, and few species are expected to exhibit populations beyond such limits for any length of time—leading to the matter of variation in population size. 2.1.1.11 Population variability Most species show little population variability compared to the maximum variability observed. This is of little surprise based on knowledge of the elevated risk of extinction associated with high population variability. However, no species is completely resistant to the effects of its environment and all exhibit some degree of population variation. Patterns emerge as shown for population variation among fish; there is a lack of species at both extremes (Fig. 2.18). Studies of vertebrates (Fig. 2.19A) and arthropods (Fig. 2.19B) have shown a lack of species exhibiting high population variation. This is clear in Figure 2.20 for a sample of species across a variety of taxa. Although no species can withstand environmental influence to show no population variation, this is not always obvious in the ways information is presented. Choice of scale

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

(A) 0.6 Portion of species

Portion of species

(A) 0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0

35

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0.0

0.2

0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 Population variation (CV)

1.4

0.0–0.2

0.4–0.6

0.8–1.0 Variability

1.2–1.4

1.6–1.8

0.0–0.2

0.4–0.6

0.8–1.0 Variability

1.2–1.4

1.6–1.8

(B) 0.6 Portion of species

Portion of species

(B) 0.3

0.2

0.1

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0.0 –1.0

–0.8

–0.6

–0.4 –0.2 0.0 log10 (CV)

0.2

0.4

Figure 2.18 Pattern in population variation (coefficient of variation, CV) expressed in raw form in panel A and in log scale in panel B for 21 species of marine fish (from Fowler and Perez 1999, as based on Spencer and Collie 1997).

is important in observing full patterns (compare Appendix Figs 2.1.8, 2.1.7, Figs 2.18, 2.19, and 2.20 to see cases where the lack of species with very low population variability is not obvious). One meaningful measure of population variability is the coefficient of variation because of its scaled nature. However, patterns regarding population variation based on other measures are found in the literature as shown above. The magnitude of variability by some measures is related to the time over which measurements are made (e.g., longer time frames may capture more extremes, Inchausti and Halley 2001). As in all cases, observed population variation among nonhuman species reflects human influence (Anderson et al. 2008, Apollonio 1994, Gray 1989, Rapport 1989b, 1992, Rapport et al. 1985, Regier 1973, Regier and Hartman 1973, Rosenzweig 1971, Woodwell 1970, Yan and

Figure 2.19 The frequency distribution of a sample of vertebrates (A) and arthropods (B) by population variability measured as the standard deviation of the logarithm of population sizes (from Hanski 1990).

Welbourn 1990). Observed patterns account for such influence among the many other factors involved in their origins. Patterns in this section relate to one reaction of ecosystems to disturbance: increased population variation. How much variation is too much? How do we use abnormal variation to lead to meaningful management questions that conform to the tenets of management laid out in Chapter 1? In part, the interconnected nature of systems leads us to ask questions about human influence (Management Tenet 2, Chapter 1) and its sustainability— influence contributing to abnormal variation even if only by way of indirect ecosystem effects. We know that fishing contributes to population variation (Anderson et al. 2008): “At what rates should we harvest the populations of species that serve as resources?” Should the harvest of a fish species that shows high population variation be different from one that shows low population variation?

36

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

(A) 0.5

Portion of species

Portion of species

0.4 0.3 0.2

0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

0.1

0.0

0.20

0.40

0.60 0.80 1.00 Variability

1.20 >1.21

Figure 2.20 The frequency distribution of a sample of 104 species of a variety of taxa (plants, insects, invertebrates, parasites, birds, and mammals) over population variability measured as the standard deviation of the logarithm of population sizes (from Connell and Sousa 1983).

2.1.1.12 Density dependence Limits to population variation are related to population regulation and density dependence—the tendency of a population to neither go extinct nor monopolize the energy and resources of an ecosystem. Figure 2.21 illustrates the distribution of several species based on the density dependence they exhibit. Density dependence in this sample involved 190 populations of 20 species of moths and aphids (Hanski 1990) measured using a method developed by Bulmer (1975). Because the variability for individual species was not presented separately from variability between sub-populations, these figures represent a combination of within-species variability as well as the among-species variability (the latter being more the focus of this chapter). Nevertheless, it is clear that most species show density dependence intermediate to the extremes. The lack of species with high population variability is consistent with the lack of species with extreme density dependence. Extreme population fluctuations would often result from extremely positive density dependence (over-compensation, chaos, Appendix Fig. 2.1.8) with its concomitant risk of extinction. On the other extreme, lack of density dependence also carries a risk of extinction; lack of recovery from low population levels leads to species-level vulnerability. Thus, risk of extinction counts among the explanatory factors

1.25 1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00 –0.25 –0.50 –0.75 –1.00 Index of density dependence

(B) 0.8 0.7 Portion of species

0.0

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

1.25 1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00 –0.25 –0.50 –0.75 –1.00 Index of density dependence

Figure 2.21 The frequency distribution of a collection of species of moths (A) and aphids (B) by level of density dependence, from Hanski (1990). Strength of density dependence increases toward larger negative numbers (reversed from usual order in these graphs to show increasing density dependence from left to right).

contributing to the origin of patterns in density dependence. What is a normal level of density dependence? For nonhuman species, this is a question for science, rather than management, as we cannot control the density dependence of other species (Management Tenet 2, Chapter 1). Among the management questions generated by abnormal density dependence would be those posed in regard to human contributions through factors which are under our control. Explicitly accounting for density dependence would be exemplified by management questions such as: What is an appropriate size composition for the harvest of individuals from a species with 0.5 as an index of density dependence (in units of Fig. 2.21)? This question defines the need for patterns involving both selectivity and density dependence to reveal what is normal and what is abnormal.

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

2.1.1.14 Other factors 2.1.1.14.1 Rate of population increase Rates of population increase are related to a number of life history factors. These include fecundity, life span, and age at first reproduction. Fecund species with short life spans and early maturation do tend to be more numerous than less fecund longer lived, and late maturing species (Marzluff and Dial 1991). Maximum intrinsic rates of increase are related to body size (Blueweiss et al. 1978, Peters 1983, Sinclair 1996), such that the distribution of species by body size (Figs 2.1, 2.2) also approximates the distribution for the corresponding rates of increase. Figure 2.22 shows the distribution for 43 species of mammals as a taxonomic group. The bimodality of this

distribution is notable, compared to that of body size for terrestrial species in Figure 2.2. 2.1.1.14.2 Biomass density Figure 2.23 is an approximation of the frequency distribution pertaining to biomass per unit area for nonmarine mammal species (data from Damuth 1987). Biomass per unit area was estimated for Figure 2.23 by multiplying observed adult body size by observed density.10 Although such an approach does not account for changes in size with age, the

0.28 Portion of species

0.24 0.20 0.16 0.12 0.08 0.04 0.00

–2.0 –1.6 –1.2 –0.8 –0.4 0.0 log10 (rmax)

0.4

0.8

1.2

Figure 2.22 A frequency distribution for the log10 of the maximum intrinsic rate of increase as observed for 61 populations of 43 species of mammals, from Sinclair (1996).

0.16 Portion of species

2.1.1.13 Mode of reproduction One of the most basic examples of species-level patterns involves whether a species reproduces sexually or asexually. The observed pattern is clear: species that produce asexually are a small portion of the total, especially among animals.8 A bar graph like other frequency distributions in this chapter would show two bars with the asexual category as a much smaller portion of the total than that for sexually reproductive species. However, determining the incidence of sexual reproduction is complicated by definition of sexual reproduction and the fact that some species (e.g., many plants) reproduce both ways.9 What is a sustainable level of resource consumption that accounts for the mode of reproduction by the resource species? Mode of reproduction is one of the factors that contribute to the emergence of patterns and is therefore inherent to the information embodied in patterns. Figure 2.6, for example, involves sexually reproducing species so as to be taken into account overtly in this and other patterns restricted to sexually reproducing species. Likewise, the predators involved in this pattern are sexually reproducing species, as are humans—further specificity without loss of consonance. In patterns that are not confined to sexually reproducing species, mode of reproduction is part of what contributes to their formation to be an inherent part of the information embodied— often something that can be teased out explicitly in correlative analysis.

37

0.12 0.08 0.04 0.00 –0.50 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 log10 (kg/km2)

Figure 2.23 The frequency distribution of 368 mammal species according to an index of their biomass per unit area based on multiplying adult body size by the density for the species in the data set, from Damuth (1987). The frequency distribution for metabolic rate per unit area is expected to be very similar (see Figs 2.11 and 2.12).

38

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

frequency distributions regarding biomass per unit area are expected to show the general character depicted in this graph. As with numerical density, patterns such as that of Figure 2.23 provide information regarding advisable density for domestic livestock. Assuming that agriculture is itself sustainable, how many tons of sheep per square kilometer represent a sustainable grazing pressure in the areas of Australia that receive 20 cm of rainfall per year? As is hopefully obvious, the answer determined through the application of information from patterns like Figure 2.23 will be consistent with the advisable density in numbers of sheep per square kilometer as based on patterns such as that in Figure 2.16. To deal overtly with the issue of precipitation, either a subset of species under such circumstances would be chosen to answer the question, or correlative patterns within the overall pattern, as related to precipitation, would provide the needed information to answer the question with consonance. 2.1.1.14.3 Age/size composition of consumed resources The biomass or numbers (e.g., Fig. 2.6) of consumed resources are not the only aspects of consumption or predator–prey interactions that can be measured for consumer species. Nor are they the only issues of importance in management of resource use by humans. The allocation of resource consumption is also important as exemplified by allocation over

space (Fig. 2.13), time (Fowler and Crawford 2004), and alternative resource species (Fowler 1999a). Allocation over the different age and size categories of an individual resource species is also a matter for management. Patterns with units defined by relevant management questions are exemplified by Appendix Figure 2.1.11 which shows how 12 species of seabirds allocate their consumption of sand eel near the Shetland Isles, across the various size classes of this resource species. To address real management questions (questions involving what humans should do) the patterns needed for the consonance necessary to be realistic would be based on similar information for marine mammals. This assumes that harvesting in marine habitats is sustainable for humans—a break from true consonance. Facing this assumption directly, a new (or different) question can be asked: “What is the normal ratio of energy consumed to energy expended in consumption processes?” Allocation over size (sex, space, age, or any phenotypic character) involves selectivity and all of the genetic/evolutionary consequences. One index of selectivity by size involves the mean size of individuals harvested/consumed. Figure 2.24 shows the pattern in mean size of prey in the diets of marine mammals in their consumption of fish and cephalopods (Etnier and Fowler 2005). As humans (i.e, as a mammalian species), what is the appropriate mean size for our catch of fish or cephalopods? The pattern in Figure 2.24 involves consonance with this management question not

0.25

Portion of cases

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00 0–5

10–15 20–25 30–35 40–45 50–55 60–65 70–75 80–85 90–95 Mean length of prey (cm)

Figure 2.24 Pattern in the size of prey taken by marine mammals worldwide (Etnier and Fowler 2005). The frequency is measured among studies (cases, N = 726) wherein individual species of marine mammals are often represented several times.

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

39

found in the pattern for birds shown in Appendix Figure 2.1.11.

the appropriate population density for humans, in view of our rate of increase per generation?”

2.1.1.14.4 Rate of increase per generation time The maximum rates of population increase (r) and generation times (T) displayed above can be combined (multiplied) to show the rate of increase per generation as displayed in Figure 2.25 for 61 populations of 43 species. Note the lack of bimodality in this pattern in spite of its presence in the pattern involving generation time (e.g., Appendix Fig. 2.1.12). Management questions would be generated by any observation of abnormal rates of increase for other species. Such questions would involve any potential contributing factor stemming from human influence. Given the potential for genetic effects of harvesting: “What is an advisable allocation of harvested individuals over body size (sex, reproductive status, depth, latitude)?” If the human rate of increase per generation is abnormal, which of the components are abnormal (e.g., mean age at first reproduction, age specific birth rates, or death rates) and in need of change? We are faced with an important scientific question: “Does rT contribute to any of the variation in observed population density?” If rT explains any of the variation in population density, it is important to be asking management questions such as: “What is

2.1.1.14.5 Lifetime reproductive effort Charnov et al. (2007) calculated estimates of what they call lifetime reproductive effort (LRE) for both mammals and lizards. These two groups of species show similar patterns for this characteristic (Fig. 2.26). Are these patterns reflective of what we would observe for other groups of species? Specifically, is this pattern independent of body size as would be indicated by these data? What are the factors involved in the origin of these patterns; how are these patterns explained? Are there correlative components to the explanation of the observed variation beyond errors of estimation (e.g., is the rate of increase per generation time correlated with LRE; Fig. 2.25)? These are scientific

Portion of species

0.5 0.4

Mammals

0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

0.0

1.0 2.0 3.0 Lifetime reproductive effort

0.35 0.5

0.25 Portion of species

Portion of species

0.30

0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 –0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

0.4

Lizards

0.3 0.2 0.1

1.5

log10 (rT) Figure 2.25 The pattern for rate of increase per generation (rT, where r is the intrinsic rate of increase and T the generation time) representing data for 61 populations of 43 species of mammals, presented by Sinclair (1996).

0.0

0.0

1.0 2.0 3.0 Lifetime reproductive effort

Figure 2.26 The pattern in LRE for 40 species of mammals and 54 species of lizards (Charnov et al. 2007, with data provided by M. Moses).

40

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

questions regarding characterization and explanation of such patterns. In terms of management, is the LRE for any species abnormally high or low as a result of human influence; in particular are humans any different from what is observed for other mammals? If so, what elements of human life history contribute to any observed abnormality? Does the sustainable harvest rate differ for resource species of differing LRE? What is the sustainable size or age selectivity for harvests of species with different LRE? 2.1.1.15 Patterns and management questions Many of the patterns above (and in Appendix 2.1) involve characteristics, often largely evolved characteristics. Attempts to control such factors have consequences over which we have little or no control in management (Management Tenet 2, Chapter 1). However, there are a few that involve interactions (relationships) with other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere wherein there is the option of management when such interactions involve humans. All patterns involve factors that are accounted for in their contribution to the patterns that are informative to management where action by humans can be taken to regain normalcy. There are interrelationships among patterns (Fig. 1.4). Thus, patterns regarding individual species-level characteristics such as mean body size, trophic level, and elements of life history strategy (e.g., generation time) represent phenomena that are important to weave into management questions regarding our interaction with nonhuman species (e.g., What is the sustainable harvest of species with a generation time of 12 years?). On their own, patterns such as that for increase per generation time (Fig. 2.25) would only be consonant with management questions such as “What is the most sustainable rate of increase per generation for humans?”—something over which we have some, but limited, control. However, like body size, they would be the basis for refining existing management questions and asking new management questions. In other words, if there is abnormality observed for nonhuman systems (e.g., another species), and especially if it is known that it is the result of abnormal human influence, factors such as body size or rate of increase per generation can be used to frame

management questions. Thus, indirect relevance is retained in asking questions such as: “What is the sustainable consumption of energy for a species with a rate of increase per generation characteristic of humans?”, or “What is the sustainable geographic range size for a species with a rate of increase per generation time characteristic of humans?” Thus, beyond those patterns involving factors over which we have little control, there are many patterns which provide measures with units of varying degrees of consonance with pressing management questions. Important among such questions is the quantification (Management Tenet 9, Chapter 1) of sustainable interactions with other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. Consonant patterns are exemplified in Figures 2.4 (for numbers of prey species and the question of how many species we should consume), Figures 2.6–2.11 (regarding the extent and nature of our consumption of resources), and Figures 2.14 and 2.15 (regarding areas we should occupy vs. leave protected from direct human influence, Hobbs and Fowler 2008). Posing management questions by weaving in factors such as body size, generation time, and rate of population increase, involves the effect of such factors in otherwise consonant patterns. Refining management questions leads to accounting for such effects overtly. It involves knowing about correlative relationships—the combination of two or more factors within a pattern. The next sections treat this kind of complexity.

2.1.2 Two species-level characteristics Single species-level characteristics like those examined in the previous section are not independent of other characteristics—a fact impossible to escape in treating examples of explanation in the patterns above. Often, but not always, much of the variation exhibited within a pattern is explained by other variables—correlative patterns. For example, patterns often involve obvious correlations with body size (e.g., Blueweiss et al. 1978, Brown 1995, Calder 1984, Damuth 1981, 1987, 1991, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Kelt and Van Vuren 2001, Peters 1983, Rosenzweig 1995, Schmid et al. 2001, Schmidt-Nielsen 1984, Sinclair 1996). Fowler (1988), Charnov (1993), and Sibley et al. (2005) consider a

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

number of correlated species-level characteristics, including some that are not related to body size. Research involving correlative variation is part of the science devoted to explanation and includes characterization of patterns-within-patterns. Such information allows for the refinement of management questions and is part of the role of scientists as stakeholders in systemic management (bottom row of Fig. 1.1). The refinement of management questions is one of the ways systemic management accounts for complexity. All patterns involve a collection of correlative interactions. Table 2.1 shows the potential for research regarding combinations of two and three characteristics (second and third columns). The fourth column shows the total of all single and multifactor combinations of potential importance in a given pattern, keeping in mind that, in reality, the number of factors involved (n of Fig. 1.4), and their synergistic interactions, are impossible to completely understand. None of the published

patterns represent an entire set of species making up a complete community or ecosystem; furthermore, studies such as that of Bascompte et al. (2005) always involve groups of species (higher level taxa, or trophic groups) treated as a “species” in addition to the set of species that are treated individually. The resulting graphs represent correlations better than they do the density of species within the correlative relationships (this density and its distribution being critical to defining the normal compared to the abnormal). 2.1.2.1 Body size and other species-level characteristics Observed correlations between body size and other species-level characteristics include geographic and home range size, rate of increase, generation time, population density and size, trophic level, and metabolism (e.g., consumption and respiration). Other examples of characteristics related to body size include rates of movement, ingestion,

Table 2.1 Numbers of possible combinations of characteristics for which patterns involving species frequency distributions could be produced Number of characteristics

Interactions between two characteristics

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 3 6 10 15 21 28 36 45 55 66 78 91 105 120 136 153 171 190

41

Interactions among three characteristics — 1 4 10 20 35 56 84 120 165 220 286 364 455 560 680 816 969 1140

Total number of interactions 1 4 11 26 57 120 247 502 1,013 2,036 4,083 8,178 16,369 32,752 65,519 131,054 262,125 524,268 1,048,555

These are theoretical in the sense that research to actually demonstrate such interactions cannot be exhaustive, especially when numerous factors are involved as is almost always the case.

42

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

and reproduction, litter size, survival, and age of first reproduction (Peters 1983). The well-known relationship between body size and metabolism is one of the best known examples (Kleiber’s rule, Kleiber 1961). Several of these are illustrated in this section (and Appendix 2.1).

to the observed pattern). A fitted continuous surface representing species numbers over body size and geographic range would be possible and could represent an entire ecosystem if all species were involved (see Appendix Fig. 2.1.15). The shape, but not necessarily the position, of such distributions may be expected to remain consistent from habitat to habitat (e.g., marine to terrestrial). The combination of geographic range and body size have been the subject of numerous studies (e.g., Anderson 1977, Brown 1995, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Gaston and Lawton 1988a,b, Hugueny 1990, May 1988, and Rosenzweig 1995). As with other patterns in this chapter, we see the increasing potential for refining management questions. What portion of the geographic range of a species with a range size of 50,000 km2 and body size of 50 kg should be protected by spatial limits in the harvest of one of its resource species?

2.1.2.1.1 Body size and geographic range An example of empirical information on body size and geographic range size is shown in Figure 2.27 (from Brown and Nicoletto 1991) with the density of species represented by bars arranged in rows and columns. Each column of bars shows the portion of species in the total sample as distributed over geographic range for a selected category (span or bin) of body size. Likewise, for a given category of geographic range (row) there is a corresponding distribution of species over body size. Thus, the general patterns described for both body size (Fig. 2.1) and geographic range (Fig. 2.14) on their own are consistent with the internal patterns seen in their combination (recall the consistency required of Management Tenet 4, Chapter 1). Figure 2.27 shows an increase in mean geographic range with increasing body size. From the other perspective, the mean body size of species decreases as geographic range size decreases. Figure 2.28 presents this pattern in different graphic form. Note the lack of cases in the lower right corner—where the combined effects of large body size and small range size result in elevated risks of extinction to prevent the accumulation of species (as at least one set of factors contributing

2.1.2.1.2 Body size and home range size The home range size of mammal species is correlated with body size (Fig. 2.29). This overall pattern (e.g., Appendix Fig. 2.1.13) can be broken into subpatterns confined to particular ranges of body size (Appendix Fig. 2.1.16). Different patterns would also be seen for body size for different segments of home range size. Each such pattern is similar to those in the first part of this chapter, dealing with individual species-level traits. Similarly, each pattern demonstrates limits to variation—in this case, as related to the two correlated variables of body size and home range size. Gaston and Blackburn

Portion of species

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

0

1

2 Bod

3 e cat

y siz

4 ogor

y

5

6 7

–1

0

1

2

3

4

g

lo

5

8

ea ar

7

8 2

m (k

9

)

Figure 2.27 The correlative pattern between geographic range and body size for North American mammal species shown as a two-dimensional frequency distribution (from Brown and Nicoletto 1991).

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

8

log area (km2)

7 6 5 4 3 2

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

log10 (body mass, g)

log10 area (km2)

Figure 2.28 The pattern in the relationship between geographic range and body size for North American mammal species based on Brown (1981). The concentration of data points shows relative species frequency. The upper edge of the collection of points represents limits set by the size of the continent.

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3 –4

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

log10 (body mass, g)

Figure 2.29 The bivariate distribution of 280 mammal species in their variation over body mass and home range size as based on data from Kelt and Van Vuren (2001, with data provided by D.A. Kelt).

(2000) treat the relationships between these two species-level characteristics for birds, again showing patterns that exhibit correlations and limits to natural variation similar to those for mammals. Management questions can explicitly include home range size. An example would be: “What is the sustainable harvest of biomass from resource species with an average adult body size of 70 kg, fed upon by four species of predators with home ranges averaging 20 km 2?” What portion of the geographic range of a species with a home range of 400 km2 should be protected from the harvest of

43

primary producers in its ecosystem? What should we do if we find a species whose individuals exhibit a mean home range that is abnormal in comparison to the pattern shown in Figure 2.29? The latter question is too vague to provide management advice in regard to our interactions with other species or the ecosystem, but it directly relates to the management of the decision-making process. The answer is: “Ask management questions regarding interactions with the focal species, other species, the ecosystem, and the biosphere as systems in which the problem is observed.” 2.1.2.1.3 Body size and population variability A voluminous literature treats the joint distribution of species by body size and population variability. Related research examines variability among these patterns, their interpretation, and factors thought to contribute (e.g., Brown 1995, Connell and Sousa 1983, Gaston and Lawton 1988a,b, Pagel et al. 1991a,b, Patterson 1984). With only few exceptions, this literature supports the conclusion that species with large body size do not show as much population variability as smaller species (e.g., Gaston 1988, Gaston and Lawton 1988a,b, Hanski 1990, Lawton 1989a, 1990, Pagel et al. 1991b, Pimm 1991, Pimm and Gilpin 1989, Pimm and Redfearn 1988, Schoener 1985, Sinclair 1996, Southwood 1977, Taylor and Woiwod 1980, Zeveloff and Boyce 1988; Appendix 2.1). The data from Sinclair (1996) clearly demonstrate this relationship between body size and population variation (Fig. 2.30). In view of the patterns for body size alone (Figs 2.1 and 2.2), and for population variation alone (e.g., Fig. 2.19), most species within patterns such as that shown in Figure 2.30 (e.g., the entire set of species for a specific ecosystem, or even the biosphere) would tend to be found in the upper left. The density of species within the relationship shown in Figure 2.30 is more a product of selective research than a representation of what would be seen in nature. In other words, more species are expected to be small bodied species with higher levels of population variation than larger bodied species with low population variation—a pattern different from Figure 2.30 in the concentration of species numbers but not in the correlative relationship.

44

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

4

log10 (SDrobs)

3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3

–1.6

–1.2

–0.8

–0.4

0.0

0.4

0.8

1.2

log10 (body mass, kg)

Figure 2.30 The standard deviation of observed rates of change (in log10 scale) as related to log10 body mass (kg) for 79 populations of 55 species of mammals, from Sinclair (1996).

Management questions in which body size is explicitly included also account for population variation because of the correlation between body size and population variation but not necessarily with the precision or accuracy to be achieved with information about population variability itself. Variance within the correlation between population variability and body size involves other factors; population variability is also a product of factors other than body size. The more such factors are woven into the management question explicitly (followed by research to reveal the consonant pattern), the more we achieve in accounting for complexity. 2.1.2.1.4 Body size and population density/size The decline in the correlative relationship between population density and increasing body size for herbivorous terrestrial and freshwater mammals from Damuth’s (1987) data is shown in Figure 2.31. Similar patterns are observed for plants (Belgrano et al. 2002, Enquist and Niklas 2002). Explaining this pattern in its combination of species-level traits has been the subject of a great deal of research (e.g., Basset and Kitching 1991, Blackburn et al. 1993, Brown 1995, Brown and Maurer 1987, Cristoffer 1990, Damuth 1991, Duarte et al. 1987, Eisenberg 1981, Gaston and Lawton 1988a, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Juanes 1986, Lawton 1989a, 1990, Lawton et al. 1994, Marquet et al. 1990, Morse et al. 1985, 1988, Pagel et al. 1991a,b, Peters 1983, Peters

and Wassenberg 1983, Robinson and Redford 1986, Schmid et al. 2001). What is the sustainable density for herbivorous mammals with a mean adult body mass of 150 kg? This question (not a management question as it does not involve human action; Management Tenets 2 and 5, Chapter 1) is an example of refining a question about sustainable density to include explicit consideration of body size. Consonance with this question is seen in the pattern represented in Figure 2.31 where the species involved are mammalian herbivores measured in terms of their density. The question could have been made even more specific (refined further) if it had specified consideration of mammals in terrestrial environments—the environment represented by the data in Figure 2.31. It would have been a management question (i.e., would involve an objective for human action) if it had been: “In terrestrial systems, and assuming humans are herbivores, what is a sustainable density for humans as a mammalian species with adult body mass of 68 kg?”. 2.1.2.2 Other patterns involving two dimensions A variety of other patterns has been recognized in correlative, two-dimensional relationships among species-level characteristics. In addition to those reviewed below there are the pair-wise correlative relationships involving geographic range and density, geographic range and population size, and geographic range and population variation (among others, Appendix 2.1). Each continues to add to the options for asking and refining management questions; each is an integrative informative pattern. 2.1.2.2.1 Intrinsic rate of increase and generation time A clear relationship between the intrinsic rate of increase (r) and generation time (T) is to be expected in view of the relationships between these two variables and body size (Appendix Figs 2.1.18 and 2.1.19). Figure 2.32 shows this relationship for 61 species of mammals. The slope of the regression line fit to these data (geometric mean regression) is −1.001 ≈ −1 (related to the fact that their relationship with body size is equal but opposite, as well as the fact that the product rT is independent of body size, Fowler 1988, Sinclair 1996).

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

45

5

2

log density (nos. per k )

4 3 2 1 0 –1 –2 –3

–2

–1

0

1

2

3

4

log10 (body mass, kg2)

Portion of species

0.10

0.05

0.00

0 1

2 log

10

3 4 5 (body mass , g)

6

7

8

5.0 4.0 2 ) 3.0 m 2.0 /k n , 1.0 y sit 0.0 en –1.0 (d –2.0 g 10 lo

To the extent that both of these characteristics are related to body size, they are both (at least partially) accounted for in management based on patterns that involve body size as defined by the questions (e.g., What is the sustainable density of a mammalian species with a body size of 68 kg?). Direct measures of density accompanied by direct measures of rate of increase, generation time, and body size avoid the potential errors in correlative relationships and can be used to address questions where all three are specified. 2.1.2.2.2 Shape of productivity curves and rate of increase per generation Populations often show growth represented by the well known “S”-shaped (sigmoid) curves, growing slowly at first, rapidly at intermediate population levels and leveling off at higher levels. Species can be characterized by R, the population level

Figure 2.31 The bivariate relationship between population density and body size for 368 mammalian herbivore species: the top panel shows data plotted in a scatter plot and the bottom panel shows the corresponding threedimensional bar graph (or frequency distribution with data from Damuth 1987; units of density on the left, and body size from left to right).

corresponding to maximum growth in their populations expressed in terms relative to normal (or mean) population levels (carrying capacity). Thus, R varies in values between 0.0 and 1.0. Also, life history characteristics of species can be represented by numerous metrics, one of which is the rate of increase per generation time (rT, see Fig. 2.25). Figure 2.33 shows the pattern in the relationship between R and rT. As mentioned above, both r and T are related to body size. The correlative relationships are opposite (as equations), however, and the effect of body size is removed (cancels) in their product (rT). Thus, rT is expected to show no relationship with body size (Fowler 1988). There is, therefore, no surprise in finding a lack of relationship between the shape of productivity curves and body size when we look at empirical information (Fowler 1988, Sibley et al. 2005, Sinclair 1996). In terms of

46

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

2008). In the shift from the top row to the second row of Fig. 1.1, we are faced with asking management questions such as: “What is the sustainable harvest rate for species with a rate of increase per generation of 5.0 (an otherwise dimensionless number, Charnov 1993)?” The informative consonant pattern is that involving consumption rates by predators feeding on species with that rate of increase per generation time.

log10 (rate of increase)

1.5

0.5

–0.5

–1.5 –0.5

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

log10 (generation time, yr)

2.1.3 Three species-level characteristics -1

Inflection point as portion of K = R

Figure 2.32 The correlation between rate of increase (rmax, yr ) and generation time (yr) as based on 61 species of mammals, with data from Sinclair (1996).

0.9

0.6

0.3

0.0

–1

0

1

2

ln(rT)

Figure 2.33 Relationship between the position of the inflection point (R) of the growth curve for populations and the rate of increase (r) per generation time ( T) (ln transformed, ln(rT )), from Fowler (1988).

the distribution of species within this relationship, most species would be expected to occur between the extremes, corresponding to intermediate values of rT (Fig. 2.25) and the corresponding linearity in density dependence (R ≈ 0.5). Historically, management placed the maximum sustainable yield of resource species at the peak of their productivity curves. Populations were reduced to correspond to R (below 0.5 for many fish species, and above 0.5 for many large bodied species). This strategy is now recognized as a fallacious management practice (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Smith 2004, Hobbs and Fowler

This section treats a few examples of patterns among species that involve three species-level attributes (see Appendix 2.1 for others). Graphic representation becomes increasingly difficult in considering more than one species-level characteristic. For three characteristics, one option is to plot points in a three-dimensional graph with the density of points representing the frequency of species, especially in stereograms (e.g., Fig. 2.34 as a hypothetical example, Fowler and Perez 1999).11 Another option is to graphically present serial slices through one of the three dimensions with the density of points representative of the frequency of species. In all cases, the continuing points of importance are that variation is always limited, observed patterns illustrate such limitation, patterns represent an integration of information, and, with patterns, abnormality can be measured to address consonant management questions. As the more generic single-attribute patterns are broken down into their correlative sub-patterns, we are proceeding through a process of analysis of variance (in statistical terms) at the same time we are refining management questions to achieve greater specificity. As such, it is not unusual, nor surprising, to see the upper and lower limits to variation approach each other in specific parts of the more generic patterns—the range of variation narrows. A small set of empirical data does exist to represent part of the relationship shown in Figure 2.34 (the pattern represented as might be hypothesized for a full ecosystem). The empirical data come from the species in common to two sets of published data. The 14 species shown in Figure 2.35 represent those that have measures of all three of these species-level characteristics: population

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

47

1.0

log (SDr)

0.5

0.0

Variability

–0.5

–1.0

3 2

sit

–0.5

0.0

0.5

ody

(b log

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

s)

mas

ody siz

lo

log (b

g

y)

en

0

sit

(d

1

en (d

y)

g lo –2.0

–1.0 –1.5

1.5 1.0

e)

Figure 2.34 A cluster of species (heavy points in the top panel) distributed in three-dimensional space (shown projected in each two-dimensional combination on the walls and floor of the top panel and as a stereogram in the bottom panel) much as might be expected for population variability, body size, and population density (the latter two variables shown in log scale).

variation (log10 standard deviation of r, Sinclair 1996), body mass, and population density (Damuth 1987). The orientation of this graph is different from that of Figure 2.34 but it shows the same correlations. The density of (and very likely the variation among) species can be misleading in this illustration because many small species with high population density (i.e., the extension of the relation of Fig. 2.31 to include species with the body size of insects and bacteria) and variation (i.e., the extension of the pattern in Fig. 2.30 to include very small bodied species) are missing. Nevertheless, some of

Figure 2.35 The relationship observed between population variation (log10 standard deviation of rate of change), density (log10 numbers per km2) and body size (log10 kg) for 14 species of mammals from the combined data sets of Damuth (1987) and Sinclair (1996).

the nature of the relationship in three-dimensional space is clear. Management questions can involve an explicit recognition of any one of the three variables/ characteristics within this relationship (population variation, body mass, and population density). An example would be: “What is a sustainable harvest of a mammalian species with a body mass of 100 kg?” Such questions (involving body mass) automatically achieve progress in accounting for population variation and population density. As in all cases, however, direct information (actual data) for consumption rates corresponding to measures for population variation and density provides greater insight into sustainability. 2.1.3.1 Population density, body size, trophic level Figure 2.36 illustrates a portion of the threedimensional pattern for mammalian species in their simultaneous distribution over body size, trophic level, and population density—part of what would be seen among the full set of species within an ecosystem. The bottom panels show both herbivores and carnivores that have a body size close to that of humans (34–102 kg). There are fewer carnivores (Fig. 2.36 left panels) than herbivores (right panels). Among both carnivores and herbivores there are fewer species with the body size of humans

48

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

(Fig. 2.36, bottom panels). In both cases, the largerbodied species have populations with fewer individuals per square kilometer. Carnivores tend to show lower population densities than herbivores of similar body size (Marquet 2002). These characteristics are all consistent with patterns shown earlier in this chapter. With information on increasingly more species-level characteristics we are in position to ask increasingly more refined questions—both in management and in research. For the three characteristics just covered, we can evaluate other species: “What population densities are sustainable for a strict carnivore with an adult body mass of 160 kg?” For others we might ask: “What management action is appropriate if we find that we are abnormally restricting the geographic range of an endangered mammalian carnivore with an adult body mass of 100 kg, and density of four per square

kilometer?” The vague nature of this question would lead to better management questions such as: “What portion of the continent occupied by the species (characterized as an endangered mammalian carnivore with an adult body mass of 100 kg, and density of four per square kilometer) should be left unoccupied by humans?”

2.1.4 More than three species-level characteristics The numbers of combinations for more than three species-level characteristics provide a superficial introduction to the complexity of real-world biological systems (Table 2.1). Table 2.2 shows a sample of 14 species of mammals for which there are six measures, representing the species common to three sets of data from the literature. Here, the six measures are body size, generation time, maximum

0.15 Mammalian herbivores

Portion of species

Portion of species

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

–2

–1

0

1

2

3

4

Mammalian carnivores 0.10

0.05

0.00

5

–2

log10 (density, nos. km–2)

1

2

3

4

5

4

5

0.15 Mammalian herbivores of human body size

Portion of species

Portion of species

0

log10 (density, nos. km–2)

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00

–1

–2

–1

0

1

2

3

log10 (density, nos. km–2)

4

5

Mammalian carnivores of human body size 0.10

0.05

0.00

–2

–1

0

1

2

3

log10 (density, nos. km–2)

Figure 2.36 The distribution of 410 species of mammals according to trophic level, and body size as related to population density (369 herbivores, and 42 species of carnivores, from Damuth 1987). The bottom panels show 29 species of herbivores and seven species of carnivores of a body size similar to that of humans (50–150% of human body size).

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

rate of increase, variation in population size, home range size, and density. Owing to the near impossibility of graphic demonstration of more than three characteristics, no figures representing the data in Table 2.2 for four or more interactions are included in this section. This small set of data alone allows for the presentation of 15 graphs in two dimensions, and 20 in three—some of which were presented above. However, there are 15 four-, six five-, and one six-dimensional patterns for this set of data for a total of 63 different ways of viewing these data if it were graphically possible to include them all.

2.1.5 Processes contributing to patterns among species Tribute must be paid to the progress made in studying patterns among the many species-level attributes. One of the main points of this chapter is the fact that science includes the discovery of patterns. Following discovery, scientists find themselves involved in characterization, description, analysis, and explanation. Characterization

49

provides information on the limits in natural variation among species. Another related point is that patterns (in relationships involving one, two, three or more dimensions) define a “morphology” for the groups of species involved (as in Figure 2.34).12 Such patterns are of particular interest in studying ecosystems, where the geographic ranges of various sets of species overlap and each ecosystem has its own set of species with patterns to be observed and subjected to research. However, owing to the complexity of our world, the study of such patterns as far as it has progressed has barely scratched the surface. This point is made by the tiny fraction of the possible combinations (Table 2.1) reviewed in this chapter and represented in the scientific literature beyond what is covered here. Over 30 characteristics are presented in this chapter (and Appendix 2.1). With this many measurable attributes, the entire collection of species in an ecosystem could be represented by 1.074 × 109 distributions of the types reviewed above. For the collection of patterns for three characteristics (4060 combinations among the 30 characteristics) there would be correlative relationships exemplified

Table 2.2 A list of the species common to the sets of data from Damuth (1987), Sinclair (1996), and Kelt and Van Vuren (2001) showing the corresponding measures for each of the 14 species Species name

log10(generation time, years)

log10 (intrinsic rate of increase, rmax)

Antilocarpa americana Bison bison Cervus elephus Giraffa camelopardalis Lepus americanus Loxodonta africana Microtus agrestis Mustela erminea Mustela nivalis Odocoileus hemionus Ovis canadensis Rangifer tarandus Syncerus caffer Vulpes vulpes

0.699 1.000 0.778 1.114 0.176 1.398 −0.482 0.000 −0.301 0.699 0.699 0.845 1.000 0.342

0.352 0.488 0.292 0.260 0.517 −0.019 0.246 0.619 0.573 0.047 0.243 0.288 0.462 0.563

log10 (standard deviation, observed rate of change, r) −0.654 −0.606 −1.051 −0.721 0.012 −1.071 0.468 0.408 0.492 −0.910 −0.731 −0.814 −0.724 −0.186

log10 (home range, km2)

3.005 4.425 3.874 4.135 0.515 5.244 –1.155 2.122 1.812 3.545 3.440 5.550 3.912 2.692

log10 (density, N/ km2)

log10 (body mass, kg)

−0.032 −0.495 0.739 −0.028 2.149 0.037 3.342 1.021 1.556 1.000 0.228 0.459 0.580 0.204

1.778 2.845 2.279 2.903 0.176 3.477 −1.602 −0.824 −1.523 1.699 1.845 2.176 2.653 0.845

50

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

in Figure 2.34 to be seen as stereograms to better appreciate the patterns. The scientific questions to be addressed suggest the progress yet to be made, for example: What patterns are revealed by various threedimensional relationships among species-level measures expanded beyond those represented in existing literature? How extensive is the list of dimensions over which species can be measured? How do patterns and relationships vary with environmental conditions (varying habitat or space: latitude, marine vs. terrestrial, etc.)? How do such patterns and relationships vary over time (e.g., season, climate)?

●

●

●

●

However, science does not linger on discovery or description, and explanation is never far from the minds of scientists who study relationships and patterns (e.g., Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Hubbell 2001). Patterns are natural phenomena, but what are their origins? The primary processes and dynamics that have been identified as contributing to the production of species frequency distributions are: ecological mechanics, evolutionary processes of natural selection at the individual level as well as at the species-level, primarily through selective extinction and speciation. These three sets of processes are interrelated and all operate within the context of environments as a set of conditions that contribute their own effects. The combination thus involves four domains for research13 —unlimited science of which we already see tantalizing results. Evolutionary processes are considered in detail in Chapter 3, with emphasis on species-level processes of speciation and extinction. In Chapter 3, it is argued that speciation and extinction are more important in the formation of species frequency distributions than natural selection at the individual level, and that both are more important than the nonevolutionary factors of ecological mechanics. All operate in the context of environmental circumstances, which is increasingly recognized as subject to significant human influence. In the final analysis, all contributing factors are involved in the origin of patterns, known or unknown and regardless of the category in which they fall and regardless of the importance we think they have.

Of primary importance to the message here, however, is the conclusion that the patterns in species frequency distributions emerge14 from the complexity of reality (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Crawford 2004). As such, all factors are accounted for through their contributions to observed patterns whether or not we can list them, study them, or know about them. It will be argued in Chapters 5 and 6 that while establishing the relative importance of such factors may be important in scientific debate, it is not necessary for management. This is because pattern-based management automatically accounts for the relative importance of individual factors through their contribution to the emergence of patterns (bottom row of Fig. 1.1, Fig. 1.4; Belgrano and Fowler 2008). 2.1.5.1 Ecological mechanics Ecological mechanics (the complex of biological, chemical, and physical processes and dynamics, or the non-evolutionary processes), have been the central focus of much of conventional ecology. Ecological mechanics includes the components of which species are comprised and the interactions within and among them: populations, individuals, organs, tissues, cells, chemical compounds, and elements. Examples of these processes are predator/prey and behavioral interactions (Plate 2.2), common resource use (competition), the influence of environmental variability, pheromones, nutrient dynamics and availability, and energy flow and availability. Such dynamics and relationships involve sound (hearing), light (sight), gravity, electrical fields, and related behavioral responses. Ecological mechanics encompass many of the factors that come into play in population dynamics, all the limitations and stimuli provided by the chemical environment, and the complete temperature regime (including variation and its patterns), plus those of humidity and radiation with their variation and variety of effects. All such factors influence the position of each species in such patterns, where each pattern represents a different expression and a different accounting of those factors (Fig. 1.4). Nonevolutionary factors help define both variation and its limits within patterns (Fowler and Hobbs 2002) and so are taken into account in management that is

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

based on such patterns by avoiding the abnormal (Management Tenets 3, 5, Chapter 1; Fowler 2003, Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Virtually all of the patterns presented above have resulted in examples of explanatory science following their original publication, some more than others. As seen above, it is possible to conduct an analysis of variance to decompose patterns into explanatory correlative sub-patterns. When correlative relationships involve any of the contributing factors, we can explicitly or overtly account for those factors if we have information to characterize the relationship. Such information allows for the refinement of management questions to include such factors so as to match the consonant integrative pattern (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). This includes the matter of environmental conditions. For example, Orme et al. (2006) show patterns in geographic range size as it varies globally among birds; questions regarding an expected range size can overtly include geographic location. The matter of ecological mechanics is the subject of the bulk of extant ecological literature. As such, it will not be treated in as much detail as natural selection in Chapter 3. 2.1.5.2 Natural selection at the individual level What a species is (genetically—the combination of phenotypes seen among individuals) clearly contributes to where it falls in the distribution of species within patterns. The evolutionary process of natural selection at the individual level (and among genes and combinations of genes) is instrumental in determining the genetic makeup of every species. Evolutionary dynamics involve a focus on the genetic information that overlaps ecological mechanics (natural selection often removes individuals or gene combination on the basis of related mechanical processes that don’t work). Thus, phenotype or genetic design influences much of what is observed in ecological mechanics,15 both among individuals and among species. Mechanical processes are also constrained by the raw materials making up the building blocks of life while genetic information contributes to patterns within these constraints. The constraint of context is a reality—including the context of availability of raw materials as well

51

as the influence of environmental variation, and a wealth of other factors. Evolutionary dynamics have not been described to the satisfaction of everyone, partly as a result of the complexity involved. However, the predominant process is natural selection at the individual level, as we understand it through the field of evolutionary biology. Natural selection may change (or maintain) gene frequencies among individuals, and thus change (or maintain) the character and attributes of species. The resulting genetic code, the genome of every species, is a major factor contributing to what a species is and does, and where it falls in a species frequency distribution. Evolution through natural selection operating on individuals (and the genes they carry) is linked in various ways to selective extinction and speciation, summarized below and amplified in Chapter 3—as selection operating at the species level. Part of what happens in natural selection acting on the gene frequencies within species is genetic drift (i.e., change or recombination of DNA, often characterized as random). This physical/chemical phenomenon exemplifies elements of complexity that cannot be predicted but have species-level consequences—physical–chemical processes within individuals within species. However, among species, genetic drift also provides an element of diffusion in species-level dynamics that contributes to the formation of variation and pattern among species. 2.1.5.3 Selection by extinction and speciation Natural selection at the species level is another major influence on the formation of patterns among species (Aarssen et al. 2006, Arnold and Fristrup 1982, Fowler and MacMahon 1982, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Slatkin 1981). A specific example of species-level selection as a pattern-shaping factor is found in the work of Damuth (2007). In this research species-level selection is examined in regard to a well-recognized pattern—a pattern in which energy use per unit area shows no correlation with body size. In simplistic terms, selection among species occurs because different species face different risks (chances or rates) of extinction and experience different rates of speciation. In the formation of patterns, the dynamics of extinction and speciation often override those of

52

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

natural selection among individuals and ecological mechanics, both of which can contribute to the formation of characteristics that make a species extinction prone (Chapter 3). Discussion and debate regarding the role of selectivity in extinction and speciation in the formation of many species-level patterns like those presented in this chapter are common in the scientific literature. Such efforts are part of the growing science of macroecology (e.g., Blackburn and Gaston 2006, Brown 1995, Gaston and Blackburn 2000). Everything is part of something else (with the possible exception of reality as a whole, Appendix 1.1; Wilber 1995); every system is part of a larger system. The environmental context of species and the ecosystems within which they occur involves a powerful set of factors that contribute to what we see. Even the forces of extinction involve elements such as climate, island size, latitude, and continental drift. An excellent example of implementing this principle in macroecological research is that of Orme et al. (2006) wherein it is shown that geographic range size and geographic location show pattern. The geographic range size of species is not independent of the context provided by the earth, its continents, climate, and weather. Island biogeographic research is founded on such principles—the numbers of species in a particular area is influenced by numerous factors. These factors include the size of the area, and, as is increasingly recognized, major anthropogenic impacts. Although other factors are undoubtedly involved in the formation of species frequency distributions, it seems clear that among the primary influences are ecological mechanics, evolutionary processes of natural selection at both the individual and species-level, and the context provided by systems in which species occur. Regardless of their relative importance, none of them can be ignored, especially in management (Management Tenet 3, Chapter 1), including those things not included in our current perceptions. In all cases, human influence counts among the factors involved. 2.1.5.4 Context: environmental factors Environmental circumstances count heavily in contributing to the formation of patterns such as those illustrated in this chapter. Latitude, climate,

weather, temperature, precipitation, CO2 levels, pollution levels, and radiation are among the many explanatory factors in the origin of such patterns. Such factors not only affect patterns through the processes of natural selection, but also in their roles in ecological mechanics. The science of macroecology includes looking both at the correlative nature of patterns among species as they relate to environmental factors, but also patterns among assemblies of species. Island biogeographic research spawned major contributions to the understanding and nature of species–area relationships. The relationships between geographic range size and global location exemplify such larger-scale patterns (e.g., Orme et al. 2006)—patterns that can be used to refine management questions to account for what is observed by scientists.

2.2 The eastern Bering Sea example The patterns among species displayed in this chapter illustrate measurable characteristics of any species assemblage. For example, the species frequency distribution for the numbers of species at each trophic level for the eastern Bering Sea would include every species in the ecosystem—none would be excluded. The mean trophic level, based on such data, represents an ecosystem characteristic as would the distribution of species across the various trophic levels. Thus, when expressed as portions of the species represented within the system (as described in Appendix 1.3), the distribution over trophic level (and other species-level characteristics) represents frequency, or probability, as an ecosystem characteristic. Graphic representations of the set of species with populations in each ecosystem can include all the species characteristics represented above. Such initial steps toward dealing with complexity can be extended to include combinations of characteristics, and characteristics either ignored in this chapter or yet to be discovered. Scientists recognize characteristics such as mean age at first reproduction, populationsuppressing effects of predators on prey species, contributions to nutrient turnover, mean mortality rates, and mobility. The complexity of ecosystems includes the variety of ways species can be measured, including those we have not yet discovered.

PAT T ER NS A M O N G SP ECI E S: I N F O R M AT I O N

Several species frequency distributions in Chapter 1 directly pertain to the eastern Bering Sea. Another, introduced in Figure 2.6, adds further information about consumption rates among the predators that feed on walleye pollock, a fish species with a population in the eastern Bering Sea. Figure 2.24 introduces patterns regarding spatial distribution of species in this ecosystem (and their direct influence on other species within their geographic ranges). The patterns illustrated for other ecosystems (e.g., Figs 2.7, 2.13, and Appendix Fig. 2.1.6) are the kinds of patterns that also exist in the eastern Bering Sea. Such patterns can be described for any ecosystem, notwithstanding the considerable logistic difficulty in the research required to do so. As mentioned briefly in connection with some of the patterns above we can take further steps in refining management questions. What is a sustainable harvest of walleye pollock for our species as a large mammal functioning as a predator in the eastern Bering Sea? This is a management question. Although relevant, especially as they involve factors that are relevant, most of the patterns earlier in this chapter fail to match this question. Consonance between management question and integrative informative pattern must involve similar circumstances. Out of all of the figures reviewed above, only Figure 2.6 is for consumption of pollock in the eastern Bering Sea. It fails to be fully consonant with the management question, however, in that it includes estimates of consumption rates for birds, whereas we are mammals. Consonance between question and pattern must involve identical units. It must involve the same categories as in the case of dimensionless numbers like the rate of increase per generation time (Fig. 2.25). If commercial harvests are measured in tons of biomass per year, Figure 2.9 does not provide what we are after because it involves the measure of numbers or portions of standing stock biomass. The information in Figure 2.9 does involve consumption, however, and our management of harvests measured in mass must be consistent with this information (Management Tenet 4, Chapter 1). How do we account for the body size of prey? Figure 2.6 involves walleye pollock themselves, prey size is inherent to the pattern.

53

What is a sustainable harvest of walleye pollock that accounts for our species as a large mammal functioning as a predator in the eastern Bering Sea? What should that harvest be to account for global warming, pollution, a history of commercial whaling, and the effects of commercial fishing on other species in this system? Figure 2.6 represents data for species with positions within the pattern as products of the effects of such factors. Such effects are inherent to the pattern. There may be continued reactions to such factors, and patterns reflective of more recent conditions may better account for what is currently sustainable. As the systems change and react, sometimes with considerable time lags, to environmental circumstances, different patterns may emerge. Although there may not be an explicit representation of the effects of past human activities, these factors are accounted for by the observed pattern; the species involved have shown response to such factors. Ecosystems such as the eastern Bering Sea can be characterized in all their complexity by the species-level patterns within them, dimension by dimension, much as we characterize individual humans by measures such as cholesterol levels, body mass, heart rate, intraocular pressure, blood pressure, and body temperature. Patterns among species demonstrate limits to natural variation. Collections of means, or other measures of central tendencies, among these patterns are the basis for characterizing variation among ecosystems or within any ecosystem over time. This, in turn, helps characterize patterns at the ecosystem level enabling ecosystem assessment as suggested by Rapport (1989a, b) and others. In implementing Management Tenet 2, Chapter 1, however, we can’t fool ourselves into thinking that we can control ecosystems. Ecosystems (including the fact that ecosystems interact among themselves, Guerry 2005), involve too much complexity to avoid the unintended consequences of attempts to control them. When we observe lack of health in an ecosystem (e.g., an ecosystem that shows a trait outside the normal range of natural variation among ecosystems) we can ask management questions regarding the various ways we (humans) might be contributing. If we are involved in abnormal influence in our relationships with the

54

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

biosphere, any ecosystems, or their components, we can then relieve those systems of the anthropogenic problem(s) as our contribution to solving any observed problems.

2.3 Summary and preview Management is human action so as to retain its intransitive quality, as introduced in Chapter 1. In this chapter, we have seen that there are patterns among species representing ecosystem structure and function reflective of the complexity we want to account for in establishing goals for management. We can measure the abnormal among species, based on these patterns, and we can measure the abnormal among ecosystems in comparing patterns. When humans are the abnormal among species, there is basis for management action, especially when it involves our interactions and relationships with other species, ecosystems, or the biosphere. With this foundation for management, it is clear that the best available scientific information for setting goals in management are the patterns that match management questions so that action can be taken to avoid the abnormal (Management Tenet 5, Chapter 1). The science that best serves management, then, is research that brings information about those patterns to managers and other stakeholders. These are people—people involved in asking the management questions (bottom row of Fig. 1.1). The questions they ask define the kind of information patterns must contain. In this chapter, the asking of such questions was introduced (and will be exemplified in more detail in Chapter 6).

Science does more than discover and characterize patterns, however; it also involves explanation. This aspect of science develops an understanding of some of the elements of emergence behind patterns. More holistically, this aspect of science leads to the understanding that when patterns consonant with management questions are used to guide management, the elements of emergence (of reality, Fig. 1.4) are taken into account. Of the processes contributing to patterns, nonevolutionary factors and natural selection acting on individuals are relatively well understood. We know that the environment provides contextual constraint and influence on such factors—acting to prevent the abnormal. However, only in the last several decades have scientists paid much attention to the influence of selective extinction and speciation in the formation of macroecological patterns— especially in preventing the accumulation of examples of species beyond the extremes revealed by patterns. In conventional management, extinction and speciation are largely ignored, especially insofar as they are selective; when they are considered it is through the error prone processes of conventional management (top row, Fig. 1.1). In this context, Chapter 3 considers extinction and speciation in more detail, particularly regarding the limits made obvious in patterns—limits with which we can recognize the abnormal or pathological. Risks and limits are part of what we are required to consider in systemic management (Management Tenet 6, Chapter 1). Understanding them emphasizes that extinction is a risk faced by our own species.

CHAPTER 3

Selective extinction and speciation

What has survival value for the individual may be lethal for the population. . . . —Gregory Bateson

This chapter explores one of the primary contributors to the emergence of macroecological patterns— natural selection at the species level. It considers the definition of the processes of selective extinction and speciation and provides a brief history of our understanding of them. The main focus of the chapter is on what natural selection involves. This includes opposing forces, exemplified by natural selection at the individual/gene level that can lead to extinction—a situation in which we humans likely find ourselves. The appendices focus more on the way natural selection operates at the species level. This involves how selectivity influences natural patterns. Extinction and speciation are parts of the complexity that must be taken into account in management (Management Tenet 3). Evolutionary enlightenment (Brown and Parman 1993) is crucial to management. Management must incorporate the universal and ubiquitous nature of selective systems failure (Morowitz 2002, Ormerod, 2006). Conventional management fails to account for these realities almost entirely;1 in the rare occasions when they are taken into account, they are woven into the decision-making process inconsistently and superficially. One of the objectives of this chapter is to rectify that problem. When management is based on patterns, all evolutionary processes contributing to the pattern are taken into account (Fig. 1.4). Management Tenet 6 (Chapter 1) requires that risks be taken into account—this includes the risk of extinction by any or all species. It is important, therefore, to understand how the pattern-based nature of systemic management takes into account these risks in a balanced, objective and consistent manner. Central to this process, of course, is the avoidance of extremes

and their associated risks, including that of extinction (Management Tenet 5, Chapter 1). Natural selection at the species level involves consequences for ecosystems as well as other levels of biological organization. That is, selective extinction and speciation contribute to the development and characteristics of systems in which species are represented—systems such as ecosystems.2 Evolution and coevolution at all levels contribute to the characteristics of such systems; evolution and coevolution are part of the history and explanation of the nature and character of ecosystems and the biosphere. The interactions among all systems and their components are part of the emergence of observed patterns (Fig. 1.4). Ecosystems and the processes involved contribute to the formation or explanation of macroecological patterns. The biosphere and all of its components and processes contribute to the formation or explanation of macroecological patterns. The pattern-based nature of systemic management accounts for the complexity of reality3 including ecosystems4 so that it is “ecosystem-based” with all of the evolutionary and coevolutionary forces involved. This chapter begins with a comparison of natural selection among individuals and species to better understand the latter. This is followed by a more detailed description of selective extinction and speciation. A tabular matrix is used to explore how natural selection among individuals (microevolution) interacts with selective extinction and speciation to change the numbers and mix of species in an ecosystem or other species assemblies (macroevolution). Appendices provide modelbased exploration of selectivity to help grasp the 55

56

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

combined effects of evolutionary processes. The overarching evolutionary influence of the environment is then considered, followed by a historical review of the study of selective extinction and speciation over the past 150 years, and a return to the eastern Bering Sea.

3.1 Natural selection among individuals and species Selective extinction and speciation are part of natural selection involving any level of biological organization (Arnold and Fristrup 1982, Jablonski 2007, Lewontin 1970, Okasha 2006, Williams 1992). The best-studied form of natural selection is selection among individual organisms, and the genes or gene-combinations that individuals carry, often focusing on the resulting characteristics and their change. Comprising individuals, the species evolves as a result. Speciation occurs through the effects of natural selection acting on individual organisms as carriers of genetic code selected through selective mortality and reproduction. In contrast, it is groups (sets) of species that change (evolve) through selective extinction and speciation—groups (sets) such as those involved in ecosystems.5 The evolution of species within ecosystems influences the structure and function of ecosystems as does extinction (Fowler and MacMahon 1982). The characteristics of macroecological patterns such as those exemplified in Chapter 2 are, in part, the product of selective extinction (Jablonski 2007). Natural selection at the individual level, having been well studied and documented, is a good analogy to aid in understanding the nature of selective extinction and speciation. Similarities and differences between natural selection of individuals and of species are described in this section.

3.1.1 Similarities Endpoints are part of the picture for the natural selection of both individuals and species. Endpoints— death in the case of individuals and extinction in the case of species—are reached by the individual or species which carries the genetic code that is subject to selection. Individual organisms that die

lose all future chances to pass on the characteristics embodied in their genetic makeup; individuals that die before they reproduce lose any chance to pass on their genes. Individuals that live longer often have greater potential for reproduction. A species that suffers extinction cannot pass on its genome and associated characteristics. Speciation cannot occur after extinction. Nonrandom removal is achieved among individuals by selective mortality and among species by selective extinction. The chances of mortality or extinction are influenced by the characteristics of the individual or the species, and, in both cases, by environmental conditions. Figure 3.1 illustrates this comparison in an over-simplified example to illustrate the point. In this example, there are two groups: one is a group of individuals (a species, right side); the other is a group of species (such as those represented by populations in an ecosystem, left side). If the group of individuals is faced with predation, where speed is critical to escape, the chance of predation-induced mortality is greater for the slower individuals. If the group of species is faced with environmental changes (e.g., increasing water temperature) the chance of extinction is greater for species with slow evolutionary rates because these species are less capable of adapting to the changing circumstances. Selective extinction within groups of species results in change just as selective mortality does for a group of individuals. After the change, the collection of species in Figure 3.1 (left ordinate) has an increased mean potential evolutionary rate. In comparison, the outcome of natural selection acting on the group of individuals (Fig. 3.1, right ordinate) is a sub-set with a mean potential running speed that is greater than that of the original group. In this example, a change in the characteristics of each group occurs as a result of natural selection.6 Through classical Darwinian insight, evolutionary changes occur within species; characteristics of the surviving individuals have a different composition (different pattern or frequency distribution). The genetic component of this change in composition is an altered gene frequency. Changes also occur in the set of species because the surviving species also exhibit a new composition based on species-level characteristics. This change also has a

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

Set of species Portion of species

Portion of individuals

Species

Evolutionary rate

Running speed

Birth Portion of individuals

Reproduction

Portion of species

Speciation

Mortality Portion of individuals

Selective removal

Portion of species

Extinction

57

Net change

genetic component in the composition of genomedetermined characteristics (the genome being the entire distinctive collection of genetic material for each species, a distinctive set of genes). Thus, any set of species, such as the group of species with populations in an ecosystem, has genetically influenced characteristics in the same sense that any individual species does. A common feature of the two processes in the preceding example is the selective removal of units from the group, represented by the shaded curve in the middle of Figure 3.1 in both cases. Some units—the slower-moving individuals or slowerevolving species—are removed with higher probability. In addition to the nature of selective forces (e.g., predation or climate), the chance of dying or extinction depends on the characteristics of the unit of selection. Because individuals differ within species, and species differ within sets of species, these chances differ from individual to individual (for evolution of the species) and from species to

Figure 3.1 The similarity in effects of natural selection among individuals and species. The shaded area of the frequency distribution (pattern) represents the removal of either individuals from a species or species from the biosphere. The net change in the characteristics of the two groups is seen in the shift of the mean following reproduction (birth for individuals in a species and nonselective speciation for a set of species) to restore total numbers. In both cases, of course, it is the genetic code (frequency) behind such characteristics that is changed (modified from Fowler and MacMahon 1982).

species (for change in a species frequency distribution as evolution of the set of species). Note that in both cases, potential is an important element in selectivity. It is the characteristic over which selection is occurring. Individuals do not spend all their lives running at maximum speed; species do not spend all their existence evolving as fast as possible. Environmental factors play crucial roles in the manifestation of selectivity. The analogy extends to reproduction and speciation.7 Comparisons can be made between the potential for a species to split, creating two or more discrete species (cladogenesis), and the analogous process of birth for individuals within a species. Fitness results from the combined effects of selfreplication (birth within species and cladogenesis of species within a macroecological pattern) and demise (mortality within species and extinction of species). Fitness involves the probability that descendants will be present in future reproductive groups. Within species the descendants

58

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

are individuals; within an assembly or group of species the descendants are species. Complexity expressed through randomness in the elements of drift and mutation lend to another similarity in the evolutionary processes acting on individuals and species. To the extent that genetic drift reflects complexity in the dynamics of specieslevel evolution, it has a counterpart in mutation. The rates at which these phenomena occur may be related to the characteristics of the carriers of the genetic units involved (individuals for mutation and species for drift). However, the type of change reflects complexity (a variety of factors) more than any one specific driving force.

3.1.2 Differences The differences between selection at the individual and species levels are also important to recognize. In the classical Darwinian understanding of evolution, variety among the individuals upon which natural selection operates is a prerequisite. In sexually reproducing species, variety among individual organisms results from recombination of genetic material and the origin of new genetic material through mutations. Although the predictability of these processes is usually limited, both involve the effects of complexity (often seen as “random”). By contrast, in selective extinction and speciation, the evolution of a species to form an entirely new species (anagenesis, somewhat analogous to mutation) contributes to the variety upon which selective processes operate. Anagenic change among species may be more predictable than are mutations or genetic recombination. Species that evolve with identifiable trends (e.g., toward larger body size, increased specialization, or reduced population variation) experience such change. A distinction must be made between variation in the direction of evolutionary change and nonselective speciation with regard to species characteristics. The variance involved in the first case means that the direction in which any particular species evolves may be largely unpredictable, as in genetic drift. In contrast, nonselective speciation is the opposite of selective speciation; there is no difference in the chances of experiencing speciation

across the spectrum of variability among species. Thus, directional evolution can be either selective or nonselective. As the term will be used here, nonselective speciation occurs independently of any particular species characteristic—if such a dynamic is possible. Directional speciation shows its own variability; it is not uniform among species. In other words, directional tendencies will have specific exceptions.8 As will be seen shortly, the evolution of larger body size provides an example of this phenomenon. As mentioned above, the direction of speciation (specifically anagenic change) is often seen as unpredictable, and therefore resembles the unpredictable nature of mutation. Those who argue that this is random emphasize the lack of evidence for directional mutation/evolution.9 Others have a contrasting perspective. For example, the concept of evolutionary stable strategies (e.g., Williams 1992) embodies the notion that evolution can tend toward a particular (but not necessarily predictable) state, often dynamic with opposite and predictable directional evolution on either side of that state. If such evolutionary patterns correspond with each other among species, there would be a higher-level stable strategy arising from anagenic forces. This might be the case for evolutionary forces acting above and below certain optimal levels of density dependence (Fig. 2.21, Fowler 1995). The evolution of larger body size is often considered an example of directional change in phyletic evolution. Directionality has been observed frequently enough for body size to be embodied in Cope’s law.10 The evolutionary increase in the size of the horse is often cited as an example (see other examples in Newell 1949). Examples of evolution toward smaller body size (Futuyma 1986a, LaBarbera 1989, Newell 1949, Stanley 1973) emphasize the phenomena behind Cope’s law as a tendency with variation—a pattern. As such, directional evolution as a tendency may be so variable as to be conspicuous only in large samples (as in clades, Gillman 2007) or in particular cases. Directional change is not restricted to body size. Specialization, for example, involves specific diets, adaptation to narrow ranges of environmental conditions, or intraspecific dependence for dispersal or pollination.11

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

Thus, there may be a significant component of variation to the direction that species evolve but it is not without limits. Based on the evidence, much evolutionary change may be without identifiable trends, especially for some specific species-level traits.12 This does not mean that it occurs without limits. For at least some species-level characteristics there is evidence of directionality in anagenic speciation (LaBarbera 198913). The point here is not that one or the other is more important, but that both “randomness” and directionality are to varying degrees part of the evolutionary dynamics among species. The microevolution of species (i.e., within a species—the evolution of individual species), regardless of the extent of any randomness, occurs as part of processes involving selective extinction and speciation. The degree of directionality in species-level evolution may be greater than in the mutation or recombination of individual genes. Actual relative importance is inherent to patterns, regardless of the outcome of debate over this issue.

3.1.3 Conditions for natural selection Lewontin (1970) specified the underlying conditions necessary for the operation of natural selection, regardless of the level of biological organization to which they apply. Arnold and Fristrup (1982) extended the concept along similar lines. The basic elements of the idea14 as presented in both cases include: 1. Variable characteristics must occur among the units making up a level of biological organization. Phenotypic variation with a genetic component to the variation is necessary. In selective extinction and speciation, this means phenotypic variability among groups of species, such as those represented in any ecosystem. This variability is embodied in species-level patterns or frequency distributions among species as a form of diversity. 2. Variability must occur in rates of survival and reproduction by these units in different environments. This is variability in species-level fitness and pertains to the relative probabilities of being represented in the species pool from which future ecosystems will be assembled. For species

59

this combines the concept of variability both in avoiding extinction (species-level survival) and undergoing speciation and reproduction (through cladogenesis) in relation to their environment. 3. Correlation must exist between the qualities of parental units and descendant units, including potential for contribution to future generations (fitness is heritable). Among the traits that are passed from one species to succeeding species are those that selective extinction and speciation act upon. As mentioned above, and by Arnold and Fristrup (1982), the third condition may be considered as a combination of two component parts: (1) the relationship between parents (parental species) and offspring (newly evolved species) in their heritable attributes, and (2) the property-dependent15 interaction of units of selection with the environment that determines fitness. Thus, the pertinent set of species changes composition (the group evolves) in adaptation to its environment through the processes of selective extinction and speciation. This happens in parallel with changes in the species themselves through natural selection at the individual level, since species are groups of individuals. Sets of species are often similar in similar physical habitats (the abiotic environment including climate) and different in different habitats.16 Environmental influences are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

3.2 Understanding extinction and speciation In this section, the processes of extinction and speciation are described more fully. The existence of a species ends naturally through the process of extinction. Conversely, new species originate through the process of speciation. Extinction and speciation are two basic processes in the evolution of any group of species.17 The basic ideas developed in this chapter are: These processes are influenced by the qualities or attributes of species; that is, the chances of extinction or speciation depend, in part, on what species are and what they do. Different kinds, forms, and extents of selectivity occur in different environments (Appendix 3.1).

●

●

60

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

Species-level patterns, patterns among species, macroecological patterns, or species frequency distributions are heavily influenced by these dynamics. The normal ranges of variation among species are evolved characteristics of various species assemblages, such as those represented in ecosystems. The trial-and-error nature of natural selection among species contributes to the basis for using macroecological patterns as guidance in management (in implementing Tenet 5, Chapter 1). As a species, we humans are subject to specieslevel risks simply by virtue of being a species. This includes extinction,18 which would be the polar opposite of sustainability.

●

●

●

●

3.2.1 Extinction It has long been recognized that the existence of a species almost always ends in extinction, especially over geological time scales. Almost all species that have ever existed are now extinct (Brown 1995, Lewontin 1970, Raup 1986a). Numerous species have gone extinct in recent history (measured in time scales of only a few human lifespans; for example, the heath hen, dodo, passenger pigeon, Steller’s sea cow, and Caribbean monk seal as well recognized species; Day 1981). Most recorded extinctions pertain to species that were deemed to be of sufficient importance or were sufficiently visible to merit notice; extinctions among microbes, many plants, tropical insects, or marine zooplankton go unnoticed by comparison. The geological record is replete with examples of species (e.g., most of the dinosaurs and many marine mollusks) that have disappeared to leave no descendants. Even the species observed in the fossil record, however, are only a small fraction of the species that are either going or have gone extinct. Extinction must be distinguished from another process that also places temporal boundaries on the existence of species: the conversion of one species to another through evolutionary change. Many lineages in the fossil record represent a continuous series of consecutive groups we define as species. The species we see today represent the few such lineages that have not resulted in extinction. Anagenesis is the evolutionary process by which

a species in a single lineage changes to become a new species without the lineage going extinct (White 1978). How does this relate to patterns in the diversity of species illustrated in macroecological studies— particularly frequency distributions such as those shown in Chapter 2? If we place all species in categories according to mean adult body size (as in Figs 2.1 or 2.2), it is possible, through evolutionary change, for any particular species to leave one category and join another. Thus, the original category loses a member, a loss for which the term “pseudoextinction” can be used. However, the overall set of species represented by a frequency distribution does not lose the species; there was no true extinction (the original species simply has a larger mean body size in this example). Henceforth, graduation from one category to another will be referred to as anagenesis regardless of whether or not it would be called a new species by taxonomists.19 Thus, anagenesis and pseudo-extinction are ecologically equivalent with regard to the characteristic(s) that change(s).20 To understand selective extinction and speciation, particularly their influence in the formation of patterns among species, it is important that the principal distinction between the pseudo-extinction of anagenesis and terminal extinction be quite clear. Species cease to exist in both cases, either by conversion to a new species through evolution (anagenesis) or after suffering terminal extinction. The important distinction is the loss of future potential when terminal extinction occurs. Those species that go extinct (terminal extinction) are end points and cannot produce more similar species. In anagenesis, a similar21 species replaces the original and has potential for splitting into two or more species (cladogenic speciation) to produce others resembling it. For clarity, the term extinction will be used to denote the terminal variety that is the focus of this section of this chapter. As in the study of mortality rates within populations, the rate at which extinction occurs (historically and currently) among the Earth’s collection of species is important. This information helps evaluate extinction rates of anthropogenic origin, a point of considerable discussion in the field of conservation biology (e.g., Ceballos and Ehrlich

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

2002, Cracraft and Grifo 1999, Davies et al. 2006, Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981, Lawton and May 1995, Myers and Worm 2003, Raup 1984, Simberloff 1986a, Soulé and Wilcox 1980, Thomas et al. 2004, Western and Pearl 1989). Rates of extinction in the absence of abnormal human contributions serve as reference points for comparison and criteria for action. The motivation for taking action increases as anthropogenic causes of extinction rise significantly above background levels (e.g., by a thousand-fold, May et al. 1995), especially in comparison to rates of extinction caused by other species (Management Tenet 5, see Chapter 6 for more detail and comparison). To take full advantage of information about extinction rates, we also need to know about their variability. Although the long-term worldwide mean rate of extinction is useful, many studies have shown that such rates have varied greatly over time.22 It would be misleading to conclude that anthropogenic contributions to extinction are normal if comparison is being made with abnormal contributions by other species. The degree to which extinction rates vary and the factors that contribute to their variability must be considered. For the objectives of this book, it is important to understand that variability (Plate 3.1) in rates of extinction includes those across various ecological categories of species. Across the spectrum of variability for any species-level attribute, the chances of extinction can change. Such change is thus not so dependent on the taxonomic definition, identity, or genealogical relationships among species as it depends on their characteristics and the roles they play in relation to other species, communities, ecosystems, or the biosphere. That is, species experience different rates of extinction in relation to factors exemplified by factors such as their trophic level, population variability, and resource consumption rates (as shown in the patterns displayed in Chapter 2). These differences count among factors important in shaping species-level patterns (Fig. 1.4). Such patterns involve the composition of sets of species represented in ecosystems, and thereby the characteristics of ecosystems themselves (Fowler and MacMahon 1982, Hubbell 2001, Petchey et al. 2004, Solan et al. 2004).

61

3.2.2 Speciation Just as birth helps prevent a population from succumbing to extinction caused by death, speciation helps prevent the Earth’s set of species from being drained by extinction (i.e., the termination of all life as an “extinction” at a different level—the death of the biosphere). The supply of new species is produced by the well-recognized and intensely studied process of speciation involving, in large part, evolution through natural selection, especially among individuals (Williams 1992). There are two types of speciation. The first, as discussed above, is anagenesis in which individual organisms within a species nonrandomly replicate and die such that species evolve to become new species. In some of these cases the species simply moves from one category of a frequency distribution to another without becoming (being named) a new species, though it can be defined as pseudoextinct as mentioned above. Cladogenesis is the second form of speciation, and can also be involved selectively. Cladogenesis is the splitting of a single species to create two or more discrete species (White 1978). Unlike anagenesis, it results in an increase in species numbers, and like anagenesis can also change the position of species within one or more pattern or frequency distribution. The dynamic balance between cladogenic speciation rates and extinction rates has its parallel at the population level. Just as the number of individuals in a population is the result of a balance between births and deaths, the numbers of species (e.g., in a geographically defined set of species) results, in part, from the balance of cladogenesis and extinction 23 —other contributions involving changes in geographic distributions. This balance, through dynamics that are similar to those contributing to the balance within populations, prevents the formation of an infinite number of species as well as the decline of species numbers to zero. It regulates species numbers while promoting variation between upper and lower limits in diversity dependence (Rosenzweig 1975, 1995). One of the key points of this chapter (see Appendices 3.2–3.5), however, is that the continuing process of speciation provides the raw material from which

62

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

selective extinction carves away (prunes) species, leaving behind species observed in their limited variation within frequency distributions such as the patterns shown in Chapter 2. Within such distributions, species types that undergo cladogenic speciation contribute to the accumulation of similar species. The need to account for a supply of species to counterbalance the drain of extinction was part of what prompted the work of Wallace and Darwin. Scientists of their time had strong palaeontological documentation of the demise of species through extinction but needed to account for their replacement. Having addressed the question of the origin of species, Wallace, Darwin, and others launched the concept of evolution as what is now considered the primary contextual paradigm for modern biology, with an historical focus at the individual and species level (Kuhn 1962, Mayr 1982). This paradigm has, among its origins, many palaeontological roots. Today the growing horizons of ecology are profiting from a similar consideration of the palaeontological roots of selective extinction and speciation with implications for hierarchical realms of biological complexity (Jablonski 2007) exemplified by ecosystems. Selective cladogenesis occurs with varying probabilities related to the differing attributes of species. As with extinction, an important aspect of this process is that the probability of speciation varies across the variation of individual specieslevel attributes. Thus, species with one measure of a particular attribute (e.g., a specific measure of evolutionary plasticity, body size, or trophic level) may exhibit a different probability of undergoing speciation than species that exhibit less, or more, of the trait. Understanding speciation rates is important from several points of view. Considering the recent high rates of extinction occurring as a result of human activities, it is important to know whether or not the newly extinct species are being replaced with new species. This contribution to species numbers occurs as a background rate that is also influenced by conditions in the physical environment.24 Speciation rates are also influenced by the biotic environment.25 At the risk of under-emphasizing the importance of the physical environment in this

regard (it is involved, after all, as important elements of the ei in Fig. 1.4), the important point here, and as it relates to the matter of patterns important to systemic management, is the degree to which speciation rates depend upon the characteristics of species themselves. Nevertheless, the ways such rates differ from environment to environment helps explain how ecosystems differ from each other. Like extinction rates, speciation rates vary over time. A topic of intense interest to paleontologists in recent decades is the pattern of “punctuated equilibrium”26 —periods of time during which little speciation occurs, interrupted by pulses of relatively high speciation rates that are often associated with high extinction rates (Stanley 1985, 1990a,b).

3.2.3 Differences among species Species have a variety of distinguishing characteristics, a tiny sample of which was seen in the last chapter.27 The differences we usually think of are inherent in the definitions and taxonomy of species. Some involve differences, such as morphological distinctions, that we see in distinguishing the individuals of one species from those of another species, as well as distinguishing individuals within a species. Others are more emergent28 species-level characteristics (such as evolutionary plasticity or population variability) that distinguish species but not individuals within species. We are presently concerned with the differences that determine probabilities of extinction and speciation, and thereby contribute to the formation of species frequency distributions as examples of macroecological patterns. To go beyond classical views of extinction and speciation founded on taxonomic and genealogical paradigms, species must also be considered in terms of their ecological roles—a point of considerable importance if we are to include evolutionary enlightenment in ecosystem-based management. Although morphological differences often contribute to functional differences, the latter involves such things as the flow of energy and materials, population dynamics, distribution, and abundance. For some characteristics, species fall into fairly distinct categories, such as those species with wings or without wings, or species with eyes or

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

without eyes. The chances of extinction may differ among such discrete groups. In contrast, characteristics such as population variability, potential evolutionary rate, or generation times are continuous variables. The chances of extinction or speciation may also vary continuously along such gradients. The relationships between the chances of extinction and speciation and these characteristics are critical in comparing species and in understanding the role of selective extinction and speciation in the formation of species frequency distributions and other macroecological patterns.

3.2.4 Basic postulates of selective extinction and speciation Seven basic postulates of selective extinction and speciation consider species as units of biological organization (see, e.g., Arnold and Fristrup 1982, Fowler and MacMahon 1982, Lewontin 1970). These postulates are listed below, emphasizing the ways in which selective extinction and speciation contribute to the formation of patterns among species. 1. Species experience a form of terminated existence, or mortality, through extinction. This removes a portion of the species from any or all categories in a species frequency distribution. The risks (probability) of extinction experienced by every individual species translate to rates of extinction experienced by each group of species within a macroecological pattern. 2. Species undergo speciation, or the birth of new species, resulting in more than one similar species (cladogenesis). This adds species to a particular category within a pattern (species frequency distribution), usually the same as, or similar to, that of the parent species. The change to qualify as a new species may involve a different characteristic or dimension than that of a specific pattern. All species have potential for such replication and, within groups, speciation occurs as rates wherein a fraction of the group changes each unit of time. 3. Species undergo forms of self-continuation (temporal replication without subdividing into more species) in which some species change over periods of time without becoming a new species (anagenesis). A species that experiences anageneic

63

change may remain in one category of a singlecharacter species frequency distribution or may switch categories. The probability of anagenic change varies from species to species, depending in part on their characteristics. This includes the probability that species will evolve in one direction more than another for specific traits (e.g., toward larger as compared to smaller body size). 4. Species differ from one another in character, attributes, properties, and ecological relationships. These differences arise, in part, from the evolutionary processes of speciation. This diversity is expressed in the range of variability seen in the various patterns among species. 5. The probability of experiencing extinction varies from species to species, depending on their characteristics. For measures of species-level characteristics where this occurs, the probability of extinction changes across the spectrum of variation within observed patterns of diversity. 6. The probability of experiencing or realizing either cladogenic or anagenic speciation varies from species to species, depending on their characteristics. As with extinction, this probability changes across the spectrum of diversity within a species frequency distribution for many specieslevel characteristics. 7. For both extinction and speciation, selectivity is also influenced by the nature of the environment (biotic and abiotic) to which species are exposed. The species frequency distributions for sets of species in different environments are influenced differently by those environments. At this point in the history of biological sciences, some of the seven postulates of selective extinction and speciation seem obvious. For example, the second and third postulates (species maintain their identity through self-replication, and have a form of birth, through speciation) might seem obvious or trivial. However, it must be recognized that these points imply species-level inheritance of traits through their respective genomes and these genomes represent information about the nature of species and their fitness (sustainability). This is important to management (Fowler 2008). New species formed in the processes of evolution are different enough from sibling species (cladogenesis) or the parent species (anagenesis)

64

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

to qualify for new names according to taxonomic standards. Even the changes that do not qualify for new taxonomic status, however, give rise to variation—variability among species. To the extent such changes reflect complexity through randomness, they are roughly analogous to the process of mutation among genes for selection at the individual level. Regardless of whether new names are warranted (a matter of human judgment), species retain enough characteristics to be described as having inherited them. Specifically, there are basic attributes of a species that contribute to its species-level fitness, its chances of persisting in the future, or having descendent species. At least some of these change little between a parent species and its immediate descendent(s). Species-level fitness is inherited for those characteristics that are conserved, and to the extent they relate to the probabilities of extinction and speciation and the matter of sustainability. However, variation in character does occur in the speciation process. Over time scales much longer than required for the origin of one new species, variety develops among species. As indicated by Vrba (1984), there is interplay between heritability and differentiation; neither is absolute or exclusive of the other. Species as different as bacteria, kelp, insects, and elephants arise, but only across many “generations” of species, because each successive species inherits most of its predecessor’s traits. Thus, in the accumulation of the smaller changes that preserve most characteristics and similarity

from one species to the next, a great deal of variety among species develops over long time scales.

3.3 Interaction of evolutionary processes Patterns among species are, in part, products of the combined evolutionary effects of natural selection among individuals, and selective extinction and selective speciation.29 These forces can interact in a variety of ways, summarized in Table 3.1. Cladogenesis is the species-level processes of replication, birth, or recruitment. Anagenesis is the change of a species lineage over time. The processes of anagenesis and cladogenesis reflect natural selection acting primarily on individual organisms to result in changes that may alter various categories in the frequency distributions representing macroecological patterns. In contrast, extinction acts as selection among species to remove them differentially. Clearly, anagenesis and selective extinction can either reinforce or oppose each other. In Combinations 1 and 2 they reinforce each other in one direction and in Combinations 3 and 4 they reinforce in the other direction. Two other pairs of combinations (5 and 6, compared to 7 and 8) create emergent balances resulting from the opposition of the two forces. There are eight combinations when the effects of selective cladogenesis are included. Only two of these have simple and predictable results

Table 3.1 Eight combinations for the contributions of anagenesis, cladogenesis, and extinction Contributing Process

Combination 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Effect of Contribution (+ = relative addition, − = relative removal) Anagenesis Cladogenesis Extinction

+ + +

+ − +

− + −

− − −

+ + −

+ − −

− + +

− − +

Depending on whether they are contributing (+) to species numbers or removing (–) species from a particular category within a species frequency distribution. Cladogenesis cannot remove species but can add species in other categories faster, to result in the relative reduction of a specific category. Extinction cannot add species but can remove them from neighboring categories faster thereby resulting in relative increase—just the reverse of the effect of cladogenesis.

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

because of the uniformity of the three contributing forces (Combinations 1 and 4). In each case the category of species either clearly gains species (Combination 1) or loses species (Combination 4) relative to other categories. However, we must remain mindful of the fact that the factors listed in Table 3.1 are not the only contributing factors, and the categories in this table often involve opposing forces. Opposing forces involve evolutionary factors as well as ecological mechanics. The counterbalancing of the opposing forces of Table 3.1, however, is the main source of pattern in species frequency distribution insofar as selective speciation and extinction are concerned. For example, the effects of cladogenesis may be quite influential in tipping balances when extinction and anagenesis are in opposition (Combinations 5 through 8), and extinction may prevail when anagenesis and cladogenesis are in opposition (Combinations 2, 6, and 7). In all cases, the relative strengths of the effects of the combined processes determine the contribution made by selective extinction and speciation to the formation of species frequency distributions. The following sections contain a more detailed consideration of such factors.

3.3.1 Natural selection at the individual level in concert with extinction In some situations, natural selection at the individual level and extinction at the species level may be thought of as working in concert, resulting in either an accumulation or reduction of species. On one hand, the evolution of species may lead to the development of characteristics that reduce the threat of extinction (Combinations 1 and 2 of Table 3.1). In such cases, natural selection at the individual level and selective extinction at the species level may be thought of as working together to result in an accumulation of species. For example, any evolution of homeostatic density dependence through natural selection at the individual level (Fowler 1995) leads to decreased risk of extinction from both population variability and from low population levels. This would result in an accumulation of species that exhibit intermediate density dependence (see pattern in density dependence as

65

shown in Fig. 2.21). Selective cladogenesis can work in conjunction with (Combination 1), or in opposition to (Combination 2) these forces to decrease or reinforce (respectively) their combined effects. Opposition occurs through the cladogenic formation of species at higher rates in other categories, to result in relative decrease in a reference group. On the other hand, both evolutionary trends and selective extinction may act to remove species from a particular category (Combinations 3 and 4). In such cases, natural selection at the individual level and selective extinction at the species level may be thought of as working together to reduce species numbers. Species with such characteristics would be faced with selective pressures to change and thereby experience pseudo-extinction. They would also likely tend to experience terminal extinction. An example might be population variability in which the evolution of density dependence combined with extinction might contribute to reducing species numbers among those that exhibit high levels of population fluctuation. Both evolutionary trends (including the anagenesis in cladogenic splitting) and extinction remove species from categories with such characteristics. Again, selective cladogenesis can work in opposition to (Combination 3), or in conjunction with (Combination 4), these forces to reduce or reinforce their combined effects.

3.3.2 Natural selection at individual level in opposition to extinction In other situations, natural selection at the individual level and extinction at the species level may be thought of as working in opposition. The opposition can work both ways (Grantham 1995): as shown in Table 3.1, anagenesis can contribute to accumulations, as shown in Combinations 5 and 6, or removal of species, as shown in Combinations 7 and 8. As Fowler and MacMahon (1982) point out, the frequency distributions of species along a particular dimension is the result of a dynamic balance between these two forces if unaffected by other factors such as cladogenesis, or ecological factors less directly involved in the processes of extinction or speciation. Within the realm of higher-level selectivity, selective cladogenesis may

66

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

be quite influential if its effects are reinforced by either anagenesis or extinction. In one category of opposition between anagenesis and extinction, the evolution of species results in the acquisition of characteristics that are detrimental at the species level (Combinations 5 and 6). Such changes increase the risk of extinction (Dobzhansky 1958) as an expression of the “selfish” nature of genes (Dawkins 1976). Measured in terms of fitness for individual organisms, such characteristics are advantageous. However, at the species level they result in an increased threat of extinction (“evolutionary suicide,” “evolution to extinction,” or “Darwinian extinction”; Parvinen 2005, Rankin and López-Sepulcre 2005). In this case, individual fitness translates to poor fitness for the species as a “fatal flaw” (Potter 1990) or what is commonly called an evolutionary dead end—at least in terms of risk or probability. An example of this might be the evolution of larger body size (e.g., Valkenburgh et al. 2004). It may be useful (advantageous) to individuals as an adaptation to variable environmental conditions or as an escape from the risk of predation. At the same time large body size brings with it longer generation time and reduced evolutionary plasticity (Appendix 3.1) and other disadvantages at the species level. Selective cladogenesis can work to oppose or reinforce the effects of either anagenesis or extinction. In Combination 5 it reinforces anagenesis and opposes extinction, just the reverse of what happens in Combination 6. Here we must be mindful of ways that humans may have evolved to be an extinction prone species. Our intelligence (at least the ways we commonly use it) may benefit individuals (or even some groups of individuals) but also increase our risk of extinction—a matter of serious concern in any evolutionarily enlightened form of management. In a second category of opposition between anagenesis and selective extinction, traits advantageous at the species level are disadvantageous to individuals (Combinations 7 and 8). Such traits may arise as species-level characteristics through rare circumstances in the evolution of species. Evolution could occur at such low rates that selective cladogenic speciation (involving other traits) produces species with these characteristics faster than pseudo-extinction removes them. An example

might be sexual reproduction in which there are disadvantages for individuals but advantages for species.30 In this case, sexual reproduction may involve color patterns and behaviors advantageous for mating but also attract predators. Meanwhile it may promote evolutionary plasticity to reduce extinction rates through flexibility provided by recombination. A variety of such seeming enigmas in evolution fit this category (e.g., Zahavi’s handicap principles, Zahavi and Zahavi 1999). As above, selective cladogenesis can work to resist or reinforce the effects of either anagenesis or extinction. In Combination 7 it reinforces extinction and opposes anagenesis; in Combination 8 the opposite occurs. In the case of sexual reproduction, for example, cladogenesis might overpower the effects of anagenesis to act in concert with reduced risk of extinction.

3.3.3 Patterns The mix of evolutionary dynamics changes along the spectrum of a species-level characteristic to be among the contributing factors behind observed patterns—in their history or explanation. All are at the core of how selective extinction and speciation combine with ordinary evolutionary processes to contribute to determining the nature of various sets of species and thereby the structure of patterns among species. In most species, microevolution produces characteristics described by Combination 1 of Table 3.1, where all forces act in concert to result in the accumulation of species. These characteristics are not removed by extinction, or alternatives are removed faster, and such species show peak levels of cladogenic replication. Species with characteristics that fall in Combinations 3 and 4 are expected to be rare, particularly if cladogenesis is more rapid for other types of species (Combination 4). In the extreme, neither microevolution nor cladogenesis produce them very often, and any that do arise go extinct. Within Combinations 2, 3, and 5 through 8, dynamic (and often delicate) balances of various forms are struck in the opposing forces. In Combinations 5 through 8, cladogenesis may be more important than in Combinations 1 through 4.

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

Similarly, anagenesis is reinforced in Combinations 2, 3, 5, and 8 and extinction in Combinations 2, 3, 6, and 7 wherein there is opposition between the other two contributing factors. Species types for which selective cladogenesis acts to reinforce the production of species (Combination 5) may often be represented by an accumulation of species. Except for Combinations 1 and 4, the degree of balance (relative effects of each of the three contributing processes) achieved in the relative contribution is important in establishing emergent patterns. The nature of these balances leaves them vulnerable to influence and underscores the importance of the call for evolutionarily enlightened management (e.g., Brown and Parman 1993, Thompson 2005). The importance of extinction and speciation in determining the nature of species frequency distributions and the influence of the directional evolution of species can be expected to vary according to characteristic (e.g., among trophic level, population density, density dependence). For many characteristics the main influence may be those of the selectivity of extinction and speciation. Part of the basis for such an argument is found in the contention that the direction of speciation is largely unpredictable for such characteristics. This view is supported, as reviewed above, by the perception of the process as random (as from genetic drift), the lack of empirical evidence showing it to be directional, and the empirical evidence of exceptions to directional speciation. In contrast, other patterns may result more from evolutionary stable strategies with differing directional evolution in neighboring sections of a species frequency distribution. Variability can be expected in the relative importance of selective extinction compared to the influence of selective speciation or anagenesis when compared among the various species frequency distributions. As is apparent from the literature (e.g., see Appendix 3.1), the majority of available examples seem to pertain to extinction. Thus, for certain characteristics, the nature of species frequency distributions may be more a product of selective extinction than of selective speciation. Again, any debate about such issues is irrelevant in management based on patterns in that the relative importance is reflected in patterns for no more, and no less, than what it is—reality.

67

3.3.4 Limits to microevolutionary explanations The potential for opposing trends in the species dynamics outlined above demonstrates one of the limitations of historical approaches to ecosystem science. Related sciences largely draw upon ecological mechanics whereas evolutionary forces are major contributors to what we see. Within the evolutionary sciences, however, there is the tendency to neglect extinction (Jablonski 2007). Although it is a critical part, the neo-Darwinian evolutionary paradigm alone cannot explain ecosystem structure and function. There are many examples in which evolutionary changes carry species toward increasing probability of extinction31 rather than simply providing the supply of species within groups of species from which ecosystems are assembled. Examples of evolutionary changes that would seem to result in dead-ends include coevolutionary dependence, specialized feeding habits, occupation of higher trophic levels, large body size, occupation of restricted areas of specialized habitat, and any evolutionary sacrifice of sexual reproduction. In such cases, the evolution of species would end in extinction through the result of improved fitness at the individual level and reduced fitness at the species level. Thus, the evolution of species alone is inadequate to explain the nature of species frequency distributions and thereby many aspects of ecosystem structure and function. As pointed out by Alexander and Borgia (1978), differential species extinction and speciation may be confused with group selection. In spite of the similarities, however, the distinction between group selection and selective extinction and speciation is clear. Group selection is involved in the evolution of species to influence the nature of species, and thereby species frequency distributions. In contrast, selective extinction and speciation affect the evolution of sets of species, with direct influence restricted to patterns among species—species frequency distributions. Group selection pertains to changes within a species, as genetically different portions or groups within a species experience different probabilities of mortality or reproduction.32 Selective extinction entails differing chances of the death or disappearance of entire species. These

68

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

are probabilities that differ between or among species, not within species—a distinction of logical type and hierarchical level. In the context of this book, patterns among species are understood as shaped to a significant degree by selective extinction and speciation. This influence, in turn, affects the structure and function of any collection of species (e.g., clades, guilds, communities, ecosystems, the biosphere).

3.4 Influence of environment on extinction, speciation, and selectivity 3.4.1 Extinction and environmental factors The primary focus of the preceding sections was the dependence of extinction and speciation on species-level attributes. However, extrinsic or exogenous factors are also important in determin-ing which species go extinct. This is fundamental to understanding differences among sets of species exposed to different physical conditions. Successive events leading to extinction may include meteor impacts, volcanic eruptions, climate change, and ice ages, and, more recently, overharvesting, extreme climate change, habitat destruction, and pollution by humans. Consider, for example, evolutionary changes among primary producers and habitat fragmentation as two separate causes of extinction. Some species are lost from both causes. Other species would go extinct because of the risks of only one or the other of the two causes; in such cases the differences would likely be related to species-level characteristics. In each case the composition of the extinct species and the composition of the remaining species would be different (Fig. 3.1). Furthermore the magnitude of extinction may differ according to cause. The need to evaluate the effects of anthropogenic sources of risks relates to both. The factors that lead to extinction include various combinations of abiotic and biotic elements and extinction can be combination-dependent— synergism among causes, between cause and riskproducing species-level characteristics, and among species-level characteristics. Changes in the physical environmental are particularly important in causing extinction (Cracraft 1985a, Eldredge 1991,

Knoll 1989). These include changes in temperature (Cracraft 1985a, Eldredge 1991, Stanley 1984), changes in oxygen or carbon dioxide levels (Knoll 1989, Stanley 1984), sea level change (Hallam 1989), bolide impact, climate (Knoll 1989), volcanism (Knoll 1989), oceanographic circulation, tectonic activity, and geography (Knoll 1989). The degree to which these factors operate selectively has yet to be clearly determined. A variety of biotic factors is believed to contribute to risks of extinction (Maynard Smith 1989). Among those are the effects of predation, parasitism, or disease (Bakker 1983, Martin 1984a,b, Maynard Smith 1989, Roughgarden 1983, Stanley et al. 1983); biotic habitat destruction (Maynard Smith 1989, Tilman et al. 1994); and dependence on other species (e.g., symbiotic interactions, pollination, dispersal, Bakker 1983, Fowler and MacMahon 1982, Janzen and Martin 1982, Roughgarden 1983). Causes of extinction vary in both time and space. Among the biotic elements listed above, the effects contributing to extinction can be expressed at any time scale. Predators that invade a new habitat may result in the extinction of certain prey species within decades or less. Similarly, a predator that evolves more efficient strategies may decimate its prey, but over a much longer time scale (depending on the speed of evolutionary changes). Coevolution may also lead to extinction over long time scales (e.g., pollination, see Futuyma and Slatkin 1983a,b, Van Valen 1973b) as another example of natural selection at the individual level leading to extinction (individual-level selection in the context of reactions to the effects of other species which are themselves reciprocally undergoing the same kind of evolution). In the spatial context, causes of extinction in tropical locations differ from those at higher latitudes. They also differ between deserts and intertidal areas, and between mountain tops and ocean bottoms. The variance of selectivity across habitats is important to selective extinction and speciation. For example, specialist species may be more vulnerable to one cause of extinction and immobile species more at risk to another. Such cases lend uniformity among the sets of species associated with certain habitat types (e.g., tropical rain forests, deserts, and alpine tundra) in different locations.

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

When one species goes extinct, extinctions of other ecologically related species can result.33 For example, a specialized parasite goes extinct if it loses its singular host species. Any microbial species dependant on the parasite also disappear. The connection of one extinction to another need not be so direct. For example, the extinction of one species might result in the extinction of another through a complex web of relationships connecting it and other species (e.g., via a predator, a parasite, and a disease). In such cases we are dealing with indirect, or higher order, relationships wherein one extinction contributes to another. Such reverberations through the ecosystem have been referred to by a variety of names but are often called domino effects (e.g., Stanley 1984). Examples are well defined, described, and documented in the literature.34 Of considerable practical importance is the fact that biotic pathways resulting in extinction can entail extensive time lags. Secondary extinctions may not occur until decades or centuries after the initial domino falls. Although not accepted by all experts, a good example may be provided by the tree (Calvaria major) on the island of Mauritius. It is thought to have depended entirely (or at least largely) on the dodo for seed dispersal and germination (Temple 1977). It was not until almost 300 years after the extinction of the dodo that the lack of recruitment of young trees was noticed. Because this is a long-lived tree, even more time would have passed before the last adult tree would have died, resulting in extinction. Further, and more defensible, examples are probably to be found among the loss of bats as pollinators in many ecosystems around the world; it is impossible to predict the number, extent, and nature of such delayed effects (nor can we know with certainty whether or not the extinctions will include humans). Thus, many (possibly most) of the ecosystem-level effects caused by perturbations of any kind may not be noticeable in time scales of human lives.

3.4.2 Speciation and environmental factors Speciation, like extinction, can be considered a process related to both physical and biotic factors (Allmon and Ross 1990). Classical views of speciation emphasized barriers in the physical

69

environment as a driving force (Mayr 1982). The emergence of mountain ranges or splitting of land or water masses, to divide the geographic range of a single species, are classic examples. Anything that disrupts the gene flow necessary for continued existence as a single species increases the chances of speciation. Differences in the environment between two areas or genetic drift would result in eventual cladogenic speciation. Changes in environmental conditions also result in anagenic evolution to form new species. Similar forces have been identified for biotic components of the environment (Mayr 1982). The separation of a single species into two sub-populations, for example, can occur as a result of disease killing individuals in a space between areas occupied by remaining populations; with enough time, the two remaining populations can become distinct species (Plate 3.2). Physical factors continue to be seen as influential in promoting speciation, particularly through changes in the Earth’s geomorphological features and climate change.35 Specific kinds of events in the physical environment that promote speciation are also often related to extinction, exemplified by changes in sea level, oceanographic circulation, tectonic activity, and geographic and atmospheric composition. Qualities of the physical environment may also relate to speciation rates. These include diverse topography (Miller 1956) and environments that are stressful as compared to constant, uniform environments (Parsons 1991a,b, Petraits et al. 1989). As with extinction, the selectivity of such factors and processes is not well understood. Coevolutionary ecology, as one set of studies of biotic factors, is a well developed field. Many studies consider the variety of ecological interactions, such as predator–prey relationships, symbiosis, mimicry, or parasitism (Thompson 1982, 1994, 2005) in an evolutionary context. Evolutionary changes in one species give rise to a different biotic environment and related selective factors to which the other species are exposed. Coevolutionary interac-tions are often reciprocal. Such processes fall within the realm of the Red Queen model of evolution.36 Changes in a species resulting from its evolutionary response to co-occurring species undoubtedly leads to anagenic speciation on a regular basis in evolutionary time scales.

70

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

In cladogenic speciation, an existing species must be split. This may occur, for example, when the geographic ranges of interacting species partially overlap. In such situations, selective forces differ between the area of overlap and the remaining range. This difference may result in the formation of two separate species, one with a geographic range that corresponds roughly to the area of overlap. Such biotic shear forces are probably numerous. Other interactions believed to be potential biotic stimulants to speciation include parasite/host interactions, seed dispersal (or facilitated mobility in general), species that form physical substrate for others, habitat alteration, and specialization.37

3.4.3 Selectivity in different environments In the last two sections it was argued that both the abiotic and biotic environments affect extinction and speciation. The abiotic environment influences species frequency distributions through two direct effects: on the evolution of individual species and on the expression of selectivity in both extinction and speciation. There are also indirect effects; evolutionary forces are systemic in permeating entire systems. The direct impact of the physical environment on both individual species and sets of species results in formation of the biotic environment important to the evolution of both. The biotic factors of importance are expected to be different in each physical environment. Thus, each set of species is adapted to its specific physical (and accompanying biotic) environment. This adaptation reflects selection among species manifested directly by the physical environment and indirectly through biotic pathways. As observed in nature, the sets of species (and the ecosystems assembled from these sets) in different physical environments are different from each other. The more the physical environments differ from each other, the more the sets of associated species differ.38 As an example of the effects of physical environment on species frequency distribution, compare Figure 2.2A and B.

and evolutionary theory. Its origins extend back to Darwin and Wallace. Most progress, however, occurred in the last several decades of the 20th century (Okasha 2006). Today, selectivity among species (especially in extinction) is often taken for granted among paleontologists, who have published numerous examples. Many scientists in the field of macroecology also assume such selectivity counts among explanatory factors behind macroecological patterns. It remains, however, to be given attention anything like that given to microevolutionary processes (Jablonski 2007). Important to the mission of this book, however, is the even more superficial role of the principles underlying selective extinction in the ways policies are established and decisions are made in conventional management. In systemic management this problem vanishes; such factors are inherent to decision making based on patterns which integrate all contributing factors to include selective extinction, selective speciation, and all other forms of natural selection.

3.5.1 Darwin and Wallace As early as 1855, a description of the primary elements of the process of selective extinction and speciation appear in the writings of A. R. Wallace (Appleman 1970, Bateson 1979, Brooks 1972, Fowler and MacMahon 1982). For example, in a letter to Darwin, Wallace wrote: The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure to follow. (From Appleman 1970, Bateson 1979).

In another context, Wallace wrote:

3.5 Historical perspective

In the long series of changes the earth has undergone, the process of peopling it with organic beings has been continually going on, and whenever any of the higher groups have become nearly or quite extinct, the lower forms which have better resisted the modified physical conditions have served as the antitypes of which to found the new races. (From Brooks 1972)

The concept of selective extinction and speciation has its roots early in the history of modern biology

Darwin’s thoughts regarding the concept of selective extinction and speciation have been reviewed

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

or mentioned repeatedly (e.g., Grant 1989, Rensch 1959, Stanley 1979). His approach to natural selection is much broader than represented in NeoDarwinism. The following are quotes from “The Origin of Species” (Darwin 1896): . . . Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life. . . . This great fact of the parallel succession of the forms of life throughout the world, is explicable on the theory of natural selection. New species are formed by having some advantage over older forms; and the forms, which are already dominant, or have some advantage over the other forms in their own country, give birth to the greatest number of new varieties or incipient species. The extinction of species, and of whole groups of species, which has played so conspicuous a part in the history of the organic world, almost inevitably follows from the principle of natural selection. . . . Natural selection, as has just been remarked, leads to divergence of character and to much extinction of the less improved and intermediate forms of life. Hence, the more common forms, in the race for life, will tend to beat and supplant the less common forms, for these will be more slowly modified and improved. It is the same principle which, as I believe, accounts for the common species in each country . . . presenting on an average a greater number of well-marked varieties than do the rarer species. Extinction has only defined the groups: it has by no means made them. . . . . . . species which are the most numerous in individuals have the best chance of producing favorable variations within any given period.

Chapter IV of Darwin’s Origin contains a general treatment of the process, and an entire section entitled “Extinction” includes a strong flavor of differential extinction probabilities dependent on the characteristics of species. The opposing forces of natural selection at the level of the individual and that for species are recognized. Darwin clearly understood the concept of patterns among species as being a product of selective extinction and speciation. He also considered speciation as the production of the raw material upon which extinction operates. As reviewed by Brooks (1972), the work of Lyell in his Principles of Geology (published between 1830 and 1833) demonstrated that extinction was important in the dynamics of the numbers of species. Wallace’s and Darwin’s work added the concept of

71

the origin of species to supply the raw materials upon which extinction could act and to prevent extinction from obliterating life. The early evolutionists, however, emphasized taxonomic groupings of species, and were less concerned with patterns of significance for sets of species such as those from which ecosystems are assembled. Wallace and Darwin did little to develop explanations for the form and function of groups of interacting species or ecosystems other than for the nature of the species themselves. The main focus for both men was the manner in which species changed and arose, especially regarding taxonomic affinity, an emphasis that still dominates much of biological thought.

3.5.2 From Darwin and Wallace to 1980 In modern ecosystem-level biology, less progress has been made in incorporating the concept of selective extinction and speciation than in evolutionary biology and paleontology (where there also remains considerable room for progress: Jablonski 2007). The inertia of this situation has its roots in accomplishments prior to 1980. Recent reviews of material related to selective extinction and speciation point to a great deal of scientific literature prior to 1980. A brief introduction to the progress and related literature is helpful. Useful accounts of the developments of this period are found in Arnold and Fristrup (1982), Brooks (1972), Eldredge (1985), Fowler and MacMahon (1982), Grant (1989),39 Okasha (2006), Salthe (1985), Slatkin (1981), Stanley (1979),40 and Williams (1992). A critique of macroevolution and its history by Hoffman (1989c) is also a valuable source of information. Of course, the literature prior to 1980 also contains useful historical information (e.g., Bateson 1972, 1979, Gould and Eldredge 1977, Hull 1976, Lewontin 1970, Stanley 1979, Wynne-Edwards 1962). Early in the last century, mention of selection at the species level is found in De Vries (1905). The evolution of ecosystems through natural selection operating among a variety of levels of biological organization, including species, is a concept appearing at least as early as 1949 (Allee et al. 1949). The first appearance of selective extinction and speciation in general textbooks may have been the brief mention of interspecific selection in Simpson

72

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

and Beck (1965). The next general text to include the concept may have been that of Futuyma (1979) who states: “ . . . group selection in the form of species selection must certainly operate; a community contains only predator species that are not so efficient that they eliminate their prey and thereby themselves.” (Note that species selection is equated with group selection.) The late 1970s may be characterized as a period during which acceptance and recognition of selective extinction and speciation became established, if no more than as a debatable concept (e.g., Eldredge and Gould 1972, Gould and Eldredge 1977, Stanley 1975a, 1979, Vrba 1980). Lewontin (1970) and Hull (1976) provide early descriptions of the general process of natural selection and mention its applicability to species as the units subject to differential survival and reproduction.41 The early development of the field emphasized the selectivity of extinction more than speciation (Arnold and Fristrup 1982). Lewontin (1970) and others presented elements of the idea in conceptual form and certainly allowed for the speciation component. However, people working with empirical data, and paleontologists in particular, tended to dwell on extinction (e.g., Eldredge and Gould 1972). By the mid 1970s this began to change (e.g., Arnold and Fristrup 1982, Gould and Eldredge 1977, Stanley 1979). Stanley (1975a) clearly included speciation, stating that the process “ . . . favors species that speciate at high rates. . . . ”. Today the speciation component is clearly defined, and understood to be a primary component as described above.42 It should be clear that this is a matter of conceptual history and may have little bearing on the relative effects of selective extinction in comparison to selective speciation in determining the characteristics of species-level patterns in reality. The palaeontological and, to a large degree, the evolutionary literature dwell on genealogy or taxonomy in the treatment of selective extinction and speciation rather than on its implications for ecosystems or biosphere. Macroevolution, primarily a product of palaeontological work, is represented in the literature essentially as selective extinction and speciation applied to phyletic groups. As such, the sets of species to which selective extinction

and speciation apply in macroevolution are taxonomically related groups of species, or clades (Cracraft 1982, 1985b, Damuth 1985, Greenwood 1979, Levinton 1983, Vrba 1984). Macroevolution has been defined as “ . . . evolution above the species level, evolution of the higher taxa, or evolution as studied by paleontologists and comparative anatomists. . . . ” (Mayr 1982). Stanley (1975a) says: “ . . . species selection operates upon species within higher taxa. . . . ”. As Gilinsky (1986) expresses it: “Species selection . . . is a theory for explaining patterns of differential representation of species of certain kinds within clades; that is, it is a theory for explaining taxic trends”. Ecosystem-level implications of selective extinction and speciation received little attention prior to 1980. Ecosystems have been rarely considered, in the history of ecosystem science, as units affected by the evolution of the sets of species from which they are assembled, especially prior to 1980. Golley (1993), Hagen (1992), and McIntosh (1985), for example, presented histories of the ecosystem sciences in which essentially no mention is made of selective extinction and speciation. The concept has been given little or no credit for contributions to understanding or providing a basis for practical management in regard to ecosystems—a situation that continues. The bulk of ecosystem science has been, and continues to be, descriptive in this regard. The identification of species level characteristics of importance to selective extinction and speciation has been the critical, but largely unwitting, contribution of this work. The lack of integration of selective extinction and speciation into ecosystem science did not preclude the development of its specific elements in more theoretical ecological settings. Island biogeographic theory is a prime example. Early work in this field (e.g., MacArthur 1972, MacArthur and Wilson 1967) is directly relevant to selective extinction and speciation in the examination of extinction as related to geographic range size. As a result of these efforts, species-specific geographic range size is one of the most studied and well-understood dimensions in its effects on risk of extinction. In the 1980s and 1990s much useful research in the field of island biogeography contributed to the more general concept of selective extinction

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

and speciation. Island biogeographic work was expanded to include consideration of a number of species characteristics that influence the probabilities of extinction. For example J. Brown (1971, 1981) suggests that in addition to geographic range size, factors such as trophic level, body size, and specialization play roles in differential extinction. The treatments of Brown (1995) and Rosenzweig (1995) exemplify the expansion and growth of island biogeographic work.

3.5.3 1980 to the present The recent history of the development of selective extinction and speciation is far too voluminous to adequately present in the confines of a chapter (see the account in Okasha 2006). Since 1980, two major groundswells of work seem to be merging. This is the merger of the evolutionary and the conventional approaches to the study of ecosystems; studies are no longer confined to a focus on ecological mechanics (although the same cannot be said about the role of the related science in policy and management). The merger of evolutionary and ecological dynamics in science has advanced substantially through addition of natural selection at the species level to the evolutionary component. Many conventional life sciences serve to identify characteristics of species over which natural selection among species operates. The results are information-based approaches exemplified by Eldredge (1985), Salthe (1985), and Williams (1992). Conventional ecosystem sciences are described in historical reviews by Hagen (1992) and Golley (1993). Evidence of the merger of conventional and evolutionary views is found in the work on both approaches. In conventional ecosystem sciences, for example, the processes of natural selection at the species level are discussed by Allen and Hoekstra (1992) and Allen and Starr (1982). In paleontology, the work of Eldredge (1985) is a good example wherein the merger exhibits significant development. The bridging of these approaches, for example by considering selective extinction and speciation as contributing factors in the evolution of biological communities and ecosystems, is a critical step leading to the formulation of systemic management (Fowler 2003, Fowler and

73

MacMahon 1982). Philosophical consideration of this merger is also found in related literature (e.g., Salthe 1985). From Wallace and Darwin to the present, there has been an increasing tendency to focus on specific elements of selective extinction and speciation. Such specificity is often reflected in the terminology (Appendix 3.6). Much of this work is done, and the terms are used, without mention of the broader context. This seems particularly obvious in the separation of the fields of paleontology and ecology, a separation that is less prominent in work exemplifying the union between ecology and evolutionary studies involving natural selection at the species level realized in recent decades as mentioned above. Consideration of the species attributes that result in variability in extinction and speciation rates are found in both ecological and palaeontological literature. Examples with palaeontological focus are numerous (see references in Appendix 3.1).43 These are directly tied to the extinction and speciation processes. Ecological and ecosystem research, meanwhile, has resulted in the accumulation of species-level patterns with an increasing tendency to mention the link to selective extinction and speciation. The work of Gaston and Blackburn (2000) exemplifies this trend. One of the examples of direct and overt implementation of the concepts of selective extinction is that of Damuth (2007) who considered the lack of correlation between body size and energy consumed per unit area. Part of the progress seen in the merger of studies of ecological mechanics and evolutionary paradigms in recent years is the recognition that the character of various sets of species develops over time (i.e., have their own form of ontogeny). Damuth (1985) and Grantham (1995) point out that, historically, the unit that evolves through selective extinction and speciation has received relatively little attention. Fowler and MacMahon (1982) identify such units among the sets of species from which communities and ecosystem are assembled. This step, however, is only part of the larger context wherein progress in recent years has linked the variety of hierarchical levels of units that evolve and units of selection (Williams 1992). Progress at the ecosystem level is an example of the linkages

74

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

between the material- and information-based views of biological systems.44 Modeling has been central to conventional studies of the ecological mechanics of ecosystems (Golley 1993, Hagen 1992). These efforts have largely been attempts to mimic ecosystem characteristics, but usually fall prey to the fallacy of composition where it has been assumed they are adequately explanatory.45 By design, they involve omission of important processes (Pilkey and PilkeyJarvis 2007) by omitting evolutionary dynamics and interrelationships. Alternative models have demonstrated explanatory potential and see ecosystems as assemblies of populations from sets of species with frequency distributions influenced by selective extinction and speciation. Such efforts have occurred in recent years amidst steps to include more of the various elements of selectivity. Slatkin’s (1981) work is one example. Extinction and speciation were included in his model “by assuming some dependence of either speciation rates or extinction rates on the phenotypic character”. This model also included directional speciation as a bias in phenotypic change. The larger concept of selective extinction and speciation is emerging in the recognition of the simultaneous realities of both ecological mechanics and evolutionary processes operating to influence various sets of species. In essence, for ecosystem modeling, this is an amalgamation of historical dynamic systems approaches and the information-based approaches embodied in models like Slatkin’s (1981). Progress in the merger of mechanical and evolutionary process is evident in the work of both paleontologists and ecologists (e.g., Allen and Hoekstra 1992, Allen and Starr 1982, Brown 1995, Damuth 2007, Eldredge 1985, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Jablonski 2007, Kitchell 1985, Rosenzweig 1995)46. But general textbooks seem to lag behind in this regard. In the second edition of Futuyma’s book on evolutionary biology (Futuyma 1986a), the term “species selection” is defined to occur when “speciation rates or extinction rates of whole species are effected by whether or not they possess a particular characteristic; consequently, the proportion of species in a higher taxon that bear one trait or another might change”. Note here that the process

is conceptually related to taxa as the pertinent set of species. Begon et al. (1990), in a general ecology text, briefly mention the concept of selective extinction and speciation. In an otherwise predominantly descriptive approach to the topic, the authors of this text draw a connection among ecosystem properties, species frequency distributions (composition), and selective extinction and speciation. Enger and Smith (2000) provide a slightly more detailed account of selectivity and present a short list of characteristics that lend to extinction risk. This text, like most, however, does not link selectivity to the evolution of the sets of species making up ecosystems. Maynard Smith (1983) reduces selective extinction and speciation to a single sentence in saying “ . . . species will differ in their likelihood of extinction, or of further splitting, and these likelihoods will depend on their characteristics”. This form of natural selection is occasionally seen as part of natural selection as it operates at all levels (Jablonski 2007, Okasha 2006). The resulting frequency distributions of species are seen by Fowler and MacMahon (1982) as ecosystem properties in the form of structure and function acquired through selective extinction and speciation operating on the species from which ecosystems are assembled. The characteristics acquired through these processes are influenced by the nature of the abiotic environment. This is a role of selective extinction and speciation that contributes to the explanation of why ecosystems differ from one physical environment to another. The concept that sets of species adapt to their abiotic environments as an aspect of selective extinction and speciation is yet to be developed in a useful (applicable) way.47

3.6 Implications for management What does all of this mean for management? From the practical perspective, patterns among species embody the effects of evolutionary factors, including selectivity at the species level. As sets of information, the patterns themselves account for such processes along with all other contributing factors. This is the importance of Figure 1.4. In the voluminous literature on management, strong emphasis is placed on the importance of accounting

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

for a particular factor, or set of factors (such as coevolution, extinction, nutrient flow, behavior, and risk—the n factors of Fig. 1.4). In conventional approaches this is done in Step 4 of the top row of Figure 1.1. It is largely a thought process48 subject to our inability to think of everything, subject to our value systems, and subject to our inability to realistically combine what we think we know. In systemic management this entire process is avoided. It is replaced by using empirical patterns. Accounting for all such factors (i.e., accounting for complexity) happens either automatically in the nature of the pattern, or in scientific endeavor dedicated to characterizing correlative sub-patterns. This is because of the integration inherent to patterns used to set goals and policy (step 4, bottom row, Fig. 1.1; Belgrano and Fowler 2008). This relieves the management process of a great deal of human error and introduces a level of objectivity impossible to find in conventional management. Specifically, the risk of extinction is accounted for when we make management decisions based on species-level patterns when we use them to address management questions regarding the human species in our interactions and relationships with other systems. Because all elements of reality are accounted for (the infinite of Fig. 1.4), included are the process of speciation, the interaction of micro- with macroevolution, and the synergism of all evolutionary processes with all forms of ecological mechanics and environmental influence. Within almost all patterns, however, we find sub-patterns involving correlative relationships. We know about risk of extinction and its relationship with body size; such insight is one of the early products of science dealing with species-level selectivity. This emphasizes the importance of refining management questions to directly account for body size. What is a sustainable population density for humans as a species with an adult body mass of 68 kg? This refinement continues; the taxonomic aspects of selective speciation and extinction cannot be neglected. What is a sustainable population density for humans as a mammalian species with adult body mass of about 68 kg? Some patterns are not correlated with body size; energy consumption per unit area is an example. This does not relieve us of the responsibility for dealing

75

with other correlative sub-patterns and refined management questions. Trophic level is implicated in species-level selectivity. How many joules per km2 can sustainably be consumed by humans in our occupancy of a trophic level between primary consumers and strict carnivores? Sub-patterns also involve the environment. Deserts, coral reefs, rainforests, continental shelves, alpine tundra, rivers, and lakes all represent different ecosystems. Each involves, in part, a different set of species influenced by selectivity in extinction and speciation. The patterns we observe among these sets of species is influence by the reality of context provided by the environment. As such, our management questions must include specificity regarding contextual factors. How many joules of energy per km2 can be consumed sustainably each year in a tropical rain forest (low latitude desert, North American grasslands, or Antarctic ice sheet) by humans as a mammalian species with an adult body size of 68 kg? What is a sustainable density for humans as a mammalian species with an adult body size of 68 kg in areas of precipitation between 20 and 45 cm per year?

3.7 The eastern Bering Sea example In this chapter, extinction and speciation are emphasized as processes acting on species, or sets of species, particularly those represented in ecosystems (i.e., with geographic ranges partly or entirely within a particular ecosystem). Thus, any ecosystem, such as that of the eastern Bering Sea, is not just a system of material and energy flow, not simply a system of interacting populations, not merely a system affected by climate or weather (ecological mechanics). It is not merely a system within which species evolve and have evolved. It is not simply a system of coevolutionary interactions wherein species have evolutionary influences on each other, directly and indirectly. It is not the only system impacted by global warming, oceanic acidification, pollution, and the harvesting of resources for human consumption. It is a system that includes all such things and much more. The eastern Bering Sea is also a system with design and structure influenced by species-level dynamics in which species experience different rates of extinction, speciation

76

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

and evolutionary changes depending on their evolutionary, ecological, and physiological characteristics. The design and structure are what we see in species-level patterns, or frequency distributions, when we observe their shape, positions and interrelationships as exemplified in Chapter 2.49 These emergent properties (Fig. 1.4) form the characteristics of ecosystems and are exemplified for the eastern Bering Sea in Figures 1.6–1.8 and 2.6. One of the main points of this chapter is that these characteristics are, in part, evolved characteristics. In a very real sense, ecosystems have characteristics that involve a phenotypic component. Just as the mean body weight of adult prairie dogs is, in part, an evolved characteristic of that species, the mean trophic level of the species of the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem is, in part, an evolved characteristic of that ecosystem, as for any ecosystem. This knowledge makes assessment of ecosystems a more reasonable objective. However, evolution and genetics are not the only factors involved for either prairie dogs or the eastern Bering Sea. The effects of the environment (including human influences, on shorter time scales) give rise to some of the variation about the central tendencies within patterns. The intrinsic elements of mechanical relationships also come into play. Any other such factors and effects cannot be ignored as contributing factors. Selective extinction and speciation are among the trial-and-error processes of evolution (selective systems failure) that lead to understanding species as examples of sustainability. Their existence as species is information about sustainability as species (Fowler 2008). It is within the normal ranges of natural variation that we find guidance for systemic management (to adhere to Management Tenet 5, Fowler and Hobbs 2002): avoiding the abnormal. This information can be used, for example, to manage fisheries so human consumption of fish is not abnormal (e.g., within statistical confidence limits) of natural variation of consumption by other predators. As revealed in distributions such as that shown in Figure 2.6, recent harvests of pollock by humans are over 25 times greater than the mean consumption of this species by marine mammals in the eastern Bering Sea and North Pacific (Fowler 2008). The growing clarity concerning the

need to make such dramatic changes to achieve sustainability underscores the need to be sure that the intricacies of systemic management are clearly understood. The series of questions posed in Chapters 1 and 2 remain to be fully answered. Now, however, species frequency distributions can be appreciated as helpful in two ways. First, the variation among them helps establish normal ranges of natural variation among ecosystems (or any other category of sets of species). When such variation is appreciated and when we have data for ecosystems in general, the eastern Bering Sea can be compared to such variation and evaluated or assessed, asking such questions as: Is the mean abundance among the cetaceans (Fig. 1.8) normal or abnormal? Is the composition of the fish community normal or abnormal? Is the distribution of species in their geographic ranges normal or abnormal? Is the mean trophic level normal or abnormal? Is the species diversity normal or abnormal?

●

●

●

● ●

Second, the variation within species frequency distributions is helpful in establishing the normal ranges of natural variation among species. Related questions are: Are individual species, such as the threatened or endangered Steller sea lion, bowhead whale, or blue whale, at population levels outside the normal range of natural variation for such species? To address management questions related to relationships between the human and the nonhuman, can we account for all species, or all interrelationships, by any means other than using empirical patterns—specifically macroecological patterns?

●

●

Most importantly, from the point of view of what humans have as options for action (Management Tenet 2, Chapter 1), are questions related to our involvement in the eastern Bering Sea. What patterns among species are of relevance to the questions facing managers with responsibility for accounting for ecosystems, complexity, long time scales, evolution, and a variety of sciences that study such phenomena?

●

SEL EC T I V E E X T I N C T I O N A N D SP ECI AT I O N

How does paleontology get included in the list of sciences upon which management decisions are made? To what extent are we humans facing risks of extinction brought on by our evolution (Combination 6, Table 3.1)—including risks that involve our effects on ecosystems and the biosphere? The list of factors of concern is large and now the elements of evolution, extinction, and other components of species-level dynamics cannot be ignored. How do we assure that they are taken into account in our management?

●

●

●

3.8 Summary and preview This chapter has examined some of the basic elements of selective extinction and speciation through a definition of concepts and a presentation of basic elements and history. Selective speciation can be seen in contrast to the role of selective extinction. Both selective extinction and speciation contribute to the nature of species-level patterns as patterns that characterize systems such as ecosystems. NeoDarwinian or microevolutionary forces are seen as operating within the larger realm of natural selection (natural selection at all levels; Jablonski 2007, Okasha 2006) that includes selective extinction and speciation. Parallel processes, one within the other, create a hierarchical structure with fractal-like repetition. As concepts, selective extinction and speciation focus on sets of species, exemplified by clades or other taxonomic units, but are not restricted to any one set; they include the sets represented in ecosystems and the biosphere. Similarly, the concept of evolution of species has broader application than the survival/reproduction of related individuals within genealogical family50 units making up species. Processes of selective extinction and speciation apply to assemblages of species, including those represented in ecosystems. Through a few preliminary examples, selective extinction

77

and speciation have been presented as important among the many elements that contribute to the formation of patterns in the frequency distributions of such groups of species. Selective extinction and speciation are analogous to their component process—the much better understood process of natural selection at the level of the individual. In this analogy, anagenesis contributes to variation in its parallel to mutation or recombination. Thus, the factors that contribute to the formation, explanation, history, and emergence of patterns (Fig. 1.4) include selectivity in extinction, speciation, mortality, and reproduction. Evolutionary forces are accounted for when we use patterns to guide management. Because such factors are accounted for in this way, systemic management is an evolutionarily enlightened form of management. The reality (complexity) accounted for includes all evolutionary forces, factors, dynamics, and processes. Such factors are parts of reality (Appendix 1.1). The remaining chapters begin to answer the management questions posed above and in previous chapters (and specifically for the eastern Bering Sea). These chapters delve into more detail and examples of applying the information contained in species-level patterns so as to adhere to all nine Management Tenets as presented in Chapter 1. Chapter 4 is a critique of conventional management to expose faults that contribute to the abnormalities revealed by comparing humans with other species as well as the plethora of global problems confronting us. Chapter 5 looks more closely at systemic management as a replacement for currently failing forms of management to more effectively guide human behavior in a sustainable direction so as to reduce the risk of our own extinction. Chapter 6 is an evaluation of the human species in comparison to other species to identify problems to be solved and objectives to be achieved so that we and the systems upon which we depend can be sustainable.

CHAPTER 4

Why conventional management does not work

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people. —George Bernard Shaw

The preceding chapters introduce the phenomenon of limited variation among species. They explain some of the processes that contribute to both the variation and its limits as they result in species-level patterns. They also present some of the initial stages in practical application of the information in such patterns. Like all patterns, patterns observed among species define what is normal and what is abnormal for species. This chapter examines different limits—the problems, failings, and errors of conventional management—to set the stage for understanding how systemic management provides solutions by carefully choosing and using patterns such as those seen in the preceding chapters. This chapter shows conventional management to lack objectivity, fail to account for complexity, and involve erroneous beliefs/thinking—all problems largely avoided in systemic management. The context for the topic of this chapter is the set of problems confronting mankind, primarily environmental, that are often seen as catastrophic and getting worse. One of the products of science is that of documenting and describing problems so that they can be drawn to everyone’s attention. Scientific effort has been remarkably successful at listing the problems of anthropogenic origin: global warming, oceanic acidification, loss of topsoil, abnormal extinction rates, pollution/toxic waste, habitat degradation . . . . and the list goes on (Christensen et al. 1996, Colborn et al. 1997, MEA 2005a, b, Moran 2006, Pauley et al. 1998, Silver and DeFries 1990, Steffen et al. 2004, Turner et al. 1990, Woodwell 1990; World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1992; Vitousek et al. 1997). If current management were working, 78

we would not find ourselves in this situation. We are faced with having to take a critical look at the conventional management process—the topic of this chapter (and shown in the top row of Fig. 1.1). Conventional management, as a process, can be assessed in several ways. This chapter begins by examining in some detail the failure of past approaches to meet the nine management tenets laid out in Chapter 1. Following this, a number of drawbacks to conventional management are discussed as they involve factors other than those covered by the nine tenets. A final appraisal looks critically at conventional management at four focal levels of biological organization (individual, species, ecosystem, and biosphere), with particular attention to tradeoffs in risks and benefits for any management action to demonstrate the vulnerability of conventional management to human limitations and values. The advantages of systemic management are introduced, showing how it can be applied at all focal levels simultaneously, particularly at the focal levels of ecosystems and the biosphere. The chapter concludes with a return to the example of the eastern Bering Sea to illustrate the pitfalls of conventional management and the potential benefits of systemic management applied to a specific marine ecosystem.

4.1 Transitive management in relation to identified criteria for management When conventional approaches to environmental/ resource management fail, managers and

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

management scientists typically judge them to be insufficiently developed rather than in need of replacement. Full recognition and acceptance of fundamental flaws force consideration of completely different alternatives. Instead, it has been common practice to prescribe improvement to existing approaches—better models, more precise data, and training of specialists to carry on with conventional thinking. Arguments are often presented for the claim that what we are doing is acceptable. Such opinions contribute to the problems we observe; they are among the explanatory factors behind observed patterns (Fig. 1.4). Retaining an inadequate approach will not compensate for basic or fundamental irreparable flaws. Given the current state of affairs and the risks facing us, we must be open to completely replacing all failing parts of existing approaches. We need to stop using those elements of current management processes that do not work. Part of this effort involves changing the belief systems that perpetuate the use of failing management systems. The requirements of Management Tenets 1–9 (Chapter 1) are not met, in part, because of the transitive aspect of conventional management. This is in direct violation of Management Tenet 2 (Fowler 2003). Much of current management presumes an ability to control (design, engineer, or regulate) the nonhuman world. This involves stakeholders (e.g., scientists, managers, representatives of the public, politicians) attached to the role of translating scientific information to management objectives (step 4, top row, Fig. 1.1; Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Such management often leads to unresolvable conflict and creates more problems than are solved—unresolved paradox abounds. Unbridled “management” of nonhuman focal units (e.g., a single species of game, commercial fish, pest, or disease) does not adequately deal with complexity. Our limitations prevent us from ever being able to identify or understand all the consequences of any purposeful action, transitive or intransitive. Some consequences are beneficial, others are harmful, and some are both (and in all cases, these categories involve the application of humans values). Only a few consequences can be predicted, if at all (Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007); timing is especially difficult to estimate. Harmful consequences can be

79

particularly troublesome when action is directed at the nonhuman. Whether aimed at individuals, species, communities, ecosystems, or the entire biosphere,1 management involves long-term consequences for all. In dealing with complexity, it is important to know that our actions have broad consequences owing to our being part of an interconnected complex natural system. We are left with three important questions. What are the failures of conventional management that lead to observed problems? What aspects of conventional management need to be retained, and what needs to be replaced? The following leads to answers to these questions—answers that are more fully developed in the next chapter.

4.1.1 Management Tenet 1: Including humans—management must be based on an understanding of humans as part of complex biological systems On the surface, it is clear that one important goal is to ensure that humans remain a viable component of reality. Purposeful self-imposed extinction is not an option that many would entertain as an example of sustainability. However, being a part of, being composed of, and being subject to the reactions of complex systems is much more complicated than mere existence. Human nature and the roles we play in complex systems or reality are not adequately dealt with in current management. Current approaches to management fail to give complete consideration to humans. We do not adequately question the sustainability of our influence on nonhuman systems. We fail to fully consider the consequences of our actions on other elements of the systems of which we are a part. And we fail to adequately address the reactions of those components to our influence, especially in ways that result in important consequences for us (feedback on all spatial and temporal scales). The complexity of human systems is inadequately accounted for in conventional management. Neither models nor lists of factors represent a complete consideration of all factors involved in complexity (thus failing to adhere to Management Tenet 3). These failings are not a matter of malice; they are the result of being finite—something over which we have no control.

80

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

As such, there is much more to considering humans as parts of complex systems than simply our needs for food, fiber, and services (Appendix 4.1). In management, humans must be included in systems as components subject to the laws of nature the same as other components. It is important to ensure that our needs are of a magnitude that can be sustainably met by the systems upon which we depend. It is important that sustainability involve the other elements of complex systems—no more, nor no less, than it applies to humans. Considering humans as part of reality means that the reciprocity of influence and feedback is complicated by human nature. In conventional management, and in society at large, economic factors are often assigned a level of importance in decision-making that leads to the relative exclusion of environmental factors as well as our own long-term sustainability. To what extent have economic considerations gotten us into the problems that we now face (Appendix 4.2)? To what extent have the laws we have erected for ourselves contributed to current problems? What level of human needs can be met sustainably? How can we account for the complexity of human nature? Conventional approaches do not have answers to these questions, at least not in ways that simultaneously meet the requirements of the management tenets, especially Management Tenet 3 (the need to account for reality). Both human nature and our interactions with our environment are parts of the complexity that is to be accounted for in applying Management Tenet 3. In conventional approaches, there is no way to objectively weigh the relative importance of human and nonhuman factors (e.g., economic considerations versus environmental issues, or resource use versus the risk of extinction). The tradeoff among such factors is weighed, evaluated, and debated among stakeholders in conventional forms of management—not an objective process. Management Tenet 1 requires that short-term human needs cannot be given priority over other issues, including long-term human needs and the risk of our own extinction. The other tenets of management require that we place importance on such issues so that human needs are weighed objectively in relationship to other issues over a broad range of scales in time, space, and complexity. This

tenet closes the door to treating human needs as the primary issue—human needs are crucial along with those of other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. It implies the need to consider humans as subject to management in ways not dealt with in conventional approaches.

4.1.2 Management Tenet 2: Limited control— management must recognize that control over other species and ecosystems is impossible We can influence both the human and the nonhuman. However, there are always side effects (e.g., higher order effects). Such ripple effects are natural consequences of the interconnectedness found among the various elements of reality (Fig. 1.4). This second tenet is based on the principle that there are innumerable ways that influence of any kind has ripple effects through this interconnectedness. It includes feedback of direct importance to humans on various time scales. Although we have tried, we cannot control things to avoid the laws of nature. These laws guarantee that there are repercussions from influence, whether it is ours or that of other species. Conventional management tends to take control, to manipulate without full consideration of the myriad ways interrelated systems will respond. Pest “control” and predator “control” are extreme examples; the “control” of a fish population under management to achieve maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is another. We “control” diseases, rivers, floods, and crime. Most current management is based on short-sighted objectives of meeting human needs without adequately accounting for its ramifications, especially long-term consequences. These ramifications involve both other species and humans (i.e., we humans also experience feedback from our actions; Redman 1999). It is impossible to control systems of which we are a part.2 Managing ecosystems transitively is not an option. We can manage our influence on, but not manage, the biosphere. Inclusive systems place more control or limits on their components than the other way around. Yet the use of the terms “ecosystem management” and “ecological engineering” (e.g., Jørgensen and Mitsch 2000, Kangas 2004) are indications that conventional thinking is being carried forward in many current forms

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

of management with the risk of even greater failures and problems as we approach them through transitive action. Conflicts that arise from conventional transitive management occur in a variety of ways, but especially when control is attempted simultaneously at various levels of biological organization (see Management Tenet 4 below).

4.1.3 Management Tenet 3: Complexity and interconnectedness—management approaches must account for reality in its complexity over the various scales of time, space, and biological organization Complexity and uncertainty plague conventional management of our use of resources (conventionally referred to transitively as “resource management” or “management of resources”). Statistical uncertainty (Ludwig et al. 1993) is compounded by natural variability, which further complicates management. Numerous time scales, processes, variables, elements, factors, and parameters contribute to complexity to make conventional methods not only inadequate, but often misleading.3 Our ignorance of the factors that determine ecosystem structure and function adds to this uncertainty. Following conventional approaches, there is very clearly no way to realistically account for things we do not, and cannot, know—regardless of how many specialists and stakeholders are involved. The meetings of panels of experts involve a combination of their information and expertise but also their values, biases, and ignorance.4 Using conventional approaches, it is humanly impossible to recombine information produced by reductionistic science to adequately represent reality for management purposes—reality is too complex (Appendix 1.1). Owing to this complexity, we find it impossible to assemble adequate models with the parts of which we are aware (the Humpty Dumpty syndrome: Dunstan and Jope 1993, Fowler 2003, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, Horgan 1999, Nixon and Kremer 1977, Regal 1996). Complexity (reality) involves, among other things, hierarchical structure. This structure includes all biotic systems (from the sub-cellular, through individuals, and ecosystems, to the biosphere).

81

There are conventional approaches to management that achieve progress in dealing with individuals (e.g., medicine) but comparable achievements for ecosystems and the biosphere have not been made part of management—especially to account for the problems created by medicine and agriculture as currently practiced. Most clear is the lack of an approach that adheres to all nine management tenets listed here. Full objective consideration of reality is impossible in current ways of managing owing to the reliance on stakeholders (with their special interests, human limitations, bias, and values) to accomplish the task. It is impossible to make models or lists of factors that include all of them in making decisions. The infinite cannot be represented in a model.

4.1.4 Management Tenet 4: Simultaneous consistency—management must be applied consistently in all its applications and must apply simultaneously at the various levels of biological organization Conventional management does not regulate our production of CO2 in a way that is consistent with management of our consumption of energy. Of the production of biomass within an ecosystem, by an individual species, or within the biosphere, what portion should we consume or harvest? What portion should we leave for other species? What portion should we leave for ecosystems and the biosphere? Conventional management fails to find consistency in answers to these kinds of questions. What portion should be left so that there is sustainability at all levels? Even though everything is characterized by numerous interconnections, there is no consistency defined for management of pests, resources, land, or medicine in current management practices. Current management fails to simultaneously and consistently account for genetic impacts of resource use and the effects of establishing protected areas. Consistency in conventional management is lacking in its various applications. This failure has no solution in the current use of models, existing legal mandates, or habitual thought processes. It is business as usual when we hold meetings or develop matrices with lists of factors (as done in the US NEPA

82

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

process, Cantor 1996) in extremely superficial attempts to modify conventional management rather than replace its failing parts. This is especially true in dealing with the various levels of biological organization. The objectives of medicine and agriculture are often at odds with efforts to deal with overpopulation as a cause of ecosystem-level problems; the same is true for medical effects on the genetic attributes of our species. Attempts to control other species can be totally inconsistent with objectives for ecosystems. For example, current advice for an ecosystem approach to management is to reduce commercial harvests of fish (NRC 1999). This is in contrast to single-species approaches used for current harvest practices based on “controlling” a population to stimulate production (without considering all the consequences that are unknown and/or beyond control). Thus, recommended harvests of marine fishes are based largely on conventional approaches and exceed those recommended in consideration of ecosystems. There is little, if any, basis for overcoming such inconsistencies in conventional management (especially its transitive forms).

4.1.5 Management Tenet 5: Avoiding the abnormal—management must undertake to ensure that processes, relationships, individuals, species, and ecosystems are within (or will return to be within) normal ranges of natural variation Applied to individual humans, we follow this principle when we take action to keep body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, or body weight close to normal, where normal is near the mean for otherwise comparable individuals (e.g., same sex and age, and similar circumstances). Applied transitively to other species (i.e., control of another species achieved through human action), Management Tenet 5 would require maintaining individual species within their normal ranges of natural variability among species. Applied transitively to ecosystems as parts of the biosphere, this would mean attempting to manipulate ecosystems to alleviate ecosystem-level abnormality—based on the few ecosystem-level characteristics scientists have identified. However, as seen above, transitive

approaches usually (probably always) cause more problems than they solve, largely because they are based on inadequate consideration of reality. Nevertheless, it remains important that systems at all levels show a minimum of abnormality, taking action where we can (Management Tenet 2; keeping in mind that things like death and extinction are natural processes that can themselves exhibit abnormality). Circumstances that have been identified as problems for the earth’s ecosystems and biosphere (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, Colborn et al. 1997, MEA 2005a,b, Moran 2006, Pauley et al. 1998, Silver and DeFries 1990, Steffen et al. 2004, Turner et al. 1990, Woodwell 1990; World Conservation Monitoring Centre 1992; Vitousek et al. 1997) are evidence of the failure of conventional approaches to keep biotic systems within the normal range of natural variation. Fisheries management that aims to “control” a population at 40% of its virgin biomass is specifically designed to achieve the abnormal, as are the practices of agriculture and aquaculture wherein we maintain monocultures that are abnormal in the context of environmental circumstances. Much of conventional management is aimed at achieving the abnormal. We find our species to be abnormal in numerous ways (Fowler 2008, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, 2003) largely as a result of the unintended consequences of action based on what are considered good human values (e.g., medicine, agriculture, and a variety of global humanitarian efforts). What science has observed to be abnormal or pathological (e.g., Figs 1.2 and 1.7, Fowler and Hobbs 2003) proves that current management is not working.

4.1.6 Management Tenet 6: Sustainability and risk—management must be risk averse and exercise precaution in achieving sustainability It is doubtful that any action taken in conventional management is based on thorough consideration of the risk of human extinction. It is safe to assert that no action is taken through current management practices in a way that simultaneously, consistently, and fully accounts for the full suite of risks we face, especially in a way that weighs their relative importance objectively. Risks are part of

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

complexity and it is impossible to include them all explicitly in models or lists. Accepting no alternative, conventional management proceeds with the assumption that we (stakeholders) are doing the best we can—largely trapped in the top row of Figure 1.1 where minimizing one risk contributes to others (e.g., minimizing the risk of death contributes to overpopulation and increased risk of extinction). In conventional management, it is assumed that we have no option other than to ignore those risks that we know nothing about. We tend to deliberately ignore those that are deemed to be statistically insignificant even though, collectively, such risks may be more important than any one of those we now recognize. Many risks involve butterfly effects (Gleick 1987) to be of long-term consequence (e.g., the long-term effects of low levels of endocrine disrupters); most minor factors deemed of little short-term consequence are ignored. Such ignorance is not dealt with in conventional management; again, this not malice, but because of the finite nature of being human. Through conventional management practices, there is no basis for defining sustainability that fully accounts for complexity to simultaneously, and consistently, include all risks with an objective weighing of each.

4.1.7 Management Tenet 7: Knowledge and information—management must be based on information Informed decisions are clearly better than outright guesses. Current forms of management fail to find information that conforms to all nine tenets of management, and distinguish the pieces of information that are directly useful, beneficial or constructive from those that are indirectly related, misleading, deleterious or harmful.

●

●

Current management uses piecemeal information and proceeds in spite of the fact that we know those pieces are being used in ways that do not involve complete and consistent consideration of other pieces of information. The choices, translation, and evaluation of these tidbits of information is in the hands of stakeholders (top row, Fig. 1.1)

83

as the Achilles heel of conventional management (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Thus, fisheries management is based on the concept of MSY (or related approaches), knowing that there is no consideration of the genetic effects of harvesting, effects of reducing a population on other species, or effects of harvesting on the ecosystem. Even when such information is given superficial consideration (primarily through debate, opinion, and expression of special interests), our combination of the piecemeal elements of information is woefully inadequate. The pattern involved in the sigmoid population growth curve is a representation of how reduced populations grow, not a representation of sustainable yields, as currently interpreted in fisheries management (Fowler and Smith 2004; see T. Smith 1994 for a history of this thinking). It says very little if anything about the sustainability of reduced populations or the sustainability of harvests that maintain reduced populations, let along the sustainability of ecosystems within which the reductions occur. Current management largely ignores the information content of genes and genomes in spite of numerous calls for evolutionarily enlightened management to incorporate what we know and understand about genetics, evolution, and coevolution into our management processes, decision-making, and policies (Conover and Munch 2002, Fenberg and Roy 2008, Law et al. 1993, Stokes and Law 2000, Swain et al. 2007, Thompson 2005). The minimal progress that has been made in this regard has been confined largely to the debate, consideration, meetings, and panels of stakeholders in their role choosing and interpreting information in step 4 of the top row of Figure 1.1, where conventional management is most vulnerable to human nature.

4.1.8 Management Tenet 8: Including science—management must include scientific methods and principles in research, monitoring, and assessment Information produced by scientists is used in current management. Scientists monitor change and the reactions by systems in response to management action. Efforts within the field of science do an admirable job of drawing our attention to

84

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

problems and explaining what we see. Science is one of the best forms of objective observation. However, there are problems. One problem is found in management that is based on what we understand from one form (branch or field) of science without consideration of the others—especially those yet to emerge in being increasingly aware of the complexity of reality. Regardless of progress, however, we are not dealing with complexity—partly because of the endless nature of the path of becoming aware of reality. We fail to fully apply Management Tenet 3. Another problem involves logical alchemy; scientific information of one kind is converted to another (e.g, in fisheries, information about production is converted to advice about consumption; Fowler and Smith 2004, Hobbs and Fowler 2008). Current management is based on the assumption that reductionistic scientific information that does not match a management question can be converted directly to useful advice. We fail to realize that pieces of scientific information relevant to, but not consonant with, management questions mislead management when used on their own (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Thus, medicine is based primarily on physiology and morphology without fully incorporating information from other sciences such as genetics, paleontology, ecology, and population dynamics. Fisheries management is based on population dynamics and stock assessments but genetics, ecology, evolutionary biology, paleontology, behavioral sciences, and chemistry are not fully considered in decision making. Again, a complete accounting of complexity is lacking. There are still other sets of problems: Scientists from the various disciplines lack a way to contribute objectively the information they produce in proportion to the actual (real) importance of information from their fields. Nature involves a huge set of factors scientists have yet to identify, but which are not considered in management today because of our ignorance. By definition, scientists will never be able to account for anything that is unknowable.

●

●

●

Current management has not found a way in which science can be used to produce guiding information in a way that accounts for

complexity—acknowledging and taking advantage of both the limits and value of reductionism.

4.1.9 Management Tenet 9: Goals and objectives—management must have clearly defined, measurable goals and objectives Limited progress in ecosystem considerations has resulted in the suggestion that commercial fishing should be reduced (NRC 1999). The extent of reduction(s) thought to be necessary has yet to be clearly specified. This is only one of many examples of how conventional management fails to define clear, measurable goals and objectives. As mentioned above, the suggestion to reduce commercial fishing in marine ecosystems is inconsistent with management advice based on the assumption that fishing to obtain MSY is, as implied by its name, sustainable. Current forms of management do not have advice regarding the sustainable population level for humans, the amount of water we can sustainably use, or the amount of carbon dioxide we can sustainably produce. Concerns about such issues raise management questions, but political, cultural, religious, or scientific information that specifies sustainability in an objective, consistent way has not been part of conventional management. Such management does not set goals that can be achieved while applying Management Tenet 4—making each goal consistent with the others.

4.2 Other recognized drawbacks of conventional management The following section considers other aspects of the inadequacy of current approaches to managing (especially in regard to our use of living resources), and continues developing the rationale for completely different alternatives to major parts of conventional management. The problems include: Lack of a common definition for “ecosystem management.” Lack of criteria for evaluating ecosystems. Neglect of extinction, speciation, and other longterm processes. Reliance on quantitative models representing information confined to that of indirect relevance.

●

● ●

●

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

Resorting to transitive mitigation (especially symptomatic relief) rather than problem solving. Failure to reverse the burden of proof. Identifiable faulty assumptions and beliefs.

●

● ●

4.2.1 Lack of a common definition for “ecosystem management” “Ecosystem management” has no universally accepted definition (Appendix 4.1, Agee and Johnson 1988, Christensen et al. 1996, Malone 1995, Stanley 1995), and we are only beginning to conceive of the option of management related to the biosphere. Some progress toward adhering to Management Tenet 2 is achieved by the adoption of “ecosystem-based management” as the objective. There is a history and foundation for dealing with greater complexity (Lavigne 2006, Rockford et al. 2008). However, conventional management does not deal with Management Tenet 3 that requires us to simultaneously (and consistently—Management Tenet 4) have “biosphere-based” management in addition to “ecosystem-based management.” Experts and specialists disagree about what the specific goals of management at the ecosystem level should be, especially in terms of transitive management. Current attempts at ecosystem management often consist of managing single-species populations, considering5 only a select few of their ecological relationships with their environment, including other species. Simultaneous management of a number of individual species may be a step in the right direction, but does not constitute management that includes ecosystem-level objectives (e.g., normal ecosystems, leaving portions of ecosystem productivity for sustainable ecosystem function) nor responsibility for doing what is necessary to attain them.6 The way information is used for decision making often fails to account for properties of the complete ecosystem or the biosphere and their reactions to human activities.7 The finite nature of being human prevents the full complexity of reality (Appendix 1.1) from ever being taken into account. In conventional thinking, we involve stakeholders as best we can, but fail to prevent the inherent errors.

85

Definitions of management as applied to ecosystems are usually more descriptive than prescriptive (Haeuber and Franklin 1996). “Commandments”, “pillars”, and “tenets” for management to embrace greater complexity abound in the literature (Arkema et al. 2006, Fowler 2003, Francis et al. 2007, Lackey 1998, Appendix 4.3) but superficial or incomplete attention to (and implementation of) such advice does not constitute good management. When prescriptive, such advice often applies to only a few isolated aspects of management. Most importantly, most definitions are primarily lists of factors that need to be taken into account, but without means to find balance in the face of conflict; (e.g., combined consideration of endangered species and economic issues, two or more endangered species, or endangered species and “ecosystems”). The impossibility of ever completing a list of what should be taken into account underscores the importance of finding a different way to account for complexity, as required by Management Tenets 3 and 4. Other definitions dwell more on who should be involved, again without basis for balance among competing agendas. Human limitations are not taken into account. When a form of management emerges that has the desired qualities we will be able to recognize it (Haeuber and Franklin 1996), but so far no prescriptive definition has been generally accepted. Described below are several of the most common concepts of “ecosystem management”. They relate to extractive potential, ecological mechanics, human influence, ecosystem health, and multispecies subsystems. Each represents a focus that precludes objective consideration of the others. 4.2.1.1 Definitions related to extraction potential Some definitions of “ecosystem management” stress extraction: harvesting a crop (timber), removing products (oil, medicinal plants), or utilizing materials (water, nitrogen, oxygen) to meet human needs without addressing the question of whether or not the needs should be adjusted to match what can be sustainably met. Ecosystem management, as currently practiced, is intended to meet very real short-term human needs for products such as food, fuel, and fiber, but is not guided by information that fully accounts for complexity. The services

86

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

provided by ecosystems are seen as crucial to humans without adequately addressing the matter of whether or not the needs by other species for the same services are being sustainably met. Some of the immediate direct effects of extraction are considered, while long-term (e.g., evolutionary) and indirect effects are largely ignored. Attempts to account for long-term consequences of “ecosystem management” are usually framed in terms of protection or conservation; however, they are not based on objectively determined constraints, and are not tied directly to complexity. There are few if any quantifiable objectives involved. At their extremes, short-term and long-term considerations are usually seen as in conflict, and there is little basis for finding a balance or reasonable middle ground (Stanley 1995). The dilemmas involved have not been resolved. A few of the effects of extractive activities on ecosystems are recognized, but are usually dealt with in terms of transitive management, assuming humans can control them. For example, Allen and Hoekstra (1992) state that ” . . . management itself explicitly holds the system away from equilibrium”. In such perspectives, as with prevailing single-species approaches to the management of our use of natural resources, we assume that if human influence were removed the effects would dissipate and the system would either approximate some previous condition or assume a new but similar form. To compensate for change, Allen and Hoekstra (1992) include an active role for management: ” . . . the central concept is subsidy: subsidy of the managed system in recompense for the destroyed context. . . . ”. This puts the influence into a different mode or realm, involving other elements of complexity, with long-term consequences of their own about which we know little or nothing—the problem with all mitigation. With little basis for claiming that they are sustainable over evolutionary time scales, silviculture, agriculture, and aquaculture8 are among the most extreme forms of transitive “ecosystem management” practiced by humans. They entail maintenance of ecosystems in states that are conducive to the production and extraction of products for human use from very few species (especially in any one area), usually domesticated or subjected

to transitive genetic management. Agricultural practices constitute a large portion of the experience gained in manipulating (engineering; e.g., Kangas 2003) ecosystems. Manipulation of ecosystems may be less of the focus in forestry, grazing of livestock on public lands, and fisheries, but all concentrate on the extraction of products. In both agricultural and nonagricultural arenas, attempts to control predators, disease, weeds, or other species considered to be pests clearly fall in the category of transitive management. Other kinds of purposeful manipulation, such as fertilization in marine and freshwater systems, genetic engineering, and extracting CO2 from the atmosphere are being actively explored—all part of conventional management. 4.2.1.2 Definitions based on ecological mechanics Nonevolutionary mechanics are often considered as the primary basis for management. Materials/ energy or ecosystem/physiological approaches are apparent in many objectives of current “ecosystem management”. For example, Allen and Hoekstra (1992) offer as one objective to ” . . . maximize the natural contributions of energy to the functioning of the managed system, while minimizing artificial energy subsidies”. Such definitions have not precluded recognition of the need to proceed on the basis of holistic properties of ecosystems. As with the bulk of others who have dealt with the concept, Allen and Hoekstra (1992) recognize the need for a more inclusive basis for ecosystem management: ” . . . complexity is hard to manage. . . . because of our limitations in conceiving the whole”. Given our finite nature, it is impossible in conventional approaches. Management suggested for fisheries based on the sigmoid population growth curve, habitat protection based on risk of extinction, agriculture based on biodiversity, and pest control based on chemistry are all examples of management grounded on the knowledge that there are the respective mechanics involved. All are carried out in a way that is similar to medicine based on knowledge of the risk of mortality. However, in each case, complexity in its fullest is ignored. We are conscious of these factors and proceed purposefully (the “conscious purpose” of Bateson 1972).

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

4.2.1.3 Definitions related to human influence Normative properties of ecosystems are an issue in defining “ecosystem management” and often involve conflicts with human values, such as preserving habitat for an endangered species at the cost of reduced employment or food production. Attempts have been made to define ecosystem properties relative to human influence. Anderson (1991), for example, defines “naturalness” in terms of system qualities that would prevail in the absence of human influence. In other formulations of ecosystem management, natural states include humans as a component.9 Conventional approaches to assessment could be based on measures of the departure from normal states, such as the amount of energy required to maintain altered states (e.g., altered states of species richness, resilience, mean trophic level, or other ecosystem-level dimension of which many are recognized, e.g., Link et al. 2002). Unaltered states, in Anderson’s view, include species composition as well as ecosystem functioning so that “ . . . critical ecosystem components are present and structured in such a way that processes function within normal limits . . . over the long term”. Furthermore, “Integrity in a natural system further requires that it have the capacity for self-repair when perturbed . . . and that it be self-sustaining and self-regulating without human intervention”. 4.2.1.4 Definitions based on ecosystem health Often, the concept of ecosystem health is raised in attempts to define “ecosystem management”.10 For example, ecosystem health is a required management objective of the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act. While this may be a worthy objective, ecosystem health is an elusive concept primarily as a result of the vague nature of the term “health”. The criteria for assessing the need for and judging the success of management action to achieve ecosystem health are often unaddressed (see Karr 1987, 1990, 1991 for examples of measures that can be used). Health is often defined as absence of disease which may be helpful but still lacks specificity. Having no clear definition of ecosystem health emphasizes the need for standards to judge ecosystems that are altered from normal conditions as would be the case for ecosystems outside

87

the normal range of natural variation among such systems. Ecosystems have a number of dimensions over which comparative studies have the potential of establishing what is normal and what is not (e.g., linkage density, species richness, mean trophic level, total biomass; Link et al. 2002). Of course, it is possible for ecosystems to be unhealthy owing to the abnormal or pathological effects of component species. In all cases, conflict is inherent. The maintenance of viable populations of other species, or more normal states for ecosystems and the biosphere, is often at odds with short-term human interests. How do decision-makers take into account these opposing values in view of the number of such conflicts and the complexity of issues involved in each? How do managers deal with conflicting or widely diverse advice from scientists in different fields of science (or stakeholders in general)? In conventional management decisions are made with the advice of stakeholders—all with a heavy bias toward favoring human interests. 4.2.1.5 Definitions based on multispecies subsystems If we were to manage ecosystems as we have individuals and species, the term “ecosystem management” would be reserved for cases in which an entire ecosystem is the principal focus. However, various forms of multispecies transitive management are often considered ecosystem management, although the assembly of managed species is only a minor part of the overall ecosystem. Examples include management of a predator and its prey such as wolves and elk, and management of a guild or taxonomic group such as viral diseases. If only the properties and dynamics of harvested and directly impacted species are considered, this subsystem of species is being managed, not the ecosystem. Managed intransitively (controlling human participation in ecological relationships with ecosystems, guilds, or biological communities), the extraction of goods from a subsystem necessarily involves the overall ecosystem. While conventional subsystem management views the species of such subsystems as separate parts of the larger system, management applied to an entire ecosystem would consider the ecosystem as a whole.11 Transitive management applied directly to ecosystems, inevitably fails to

88

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

fully consider the consequences. Systemic management (intransitive management, Fowler 2003) applies to human interactions with ecosystems (and all other levels of biological organization and the physical environment, Fowler 2002), taking into account all the associated complexity (Fig. 1.4).

4.2.2 Lack of criteria for evaluating ecosystems Management action must consider measurable properties of ecosystems so ecosystems can be assessed and ecosystem-level problems identified and taken into account. Standards of reference, normative information (e.g., means and variances that establish normal ranges of natural variability), and clearly defined objectives are needed (Management Tenet 9).12 Means of accounting for risks and benefits of alternative courses of action are crucial in setting objectives and in assessing success or failure in management. Conventional ecosystem sciences have not provided a well-founded basis for evaluation of ecosystems. A few potentially useful properties of ecosystems have been identified (e.g., Link et al. 2002), but the limits to natural variation of such properties are not well known and normative approaches are underdeveloped. Thanks to historical ecological research, we are beginning to note the changes that have occurred in ecosystems influenced by humans, especially through abnormal anthropogenic influence. However, it is difficult to evaluate change without knowledge of normative ecosystem properties, including variation over evolutionary time scales, and whether change is desirable, as assumed in ecosystem restoration (Berger 1990, Bratton 1992, Jordan et al. 1990), or is a reaction to environmental change, the influence of biotic components, or stress from anthropogenic or other causes. We have yet to fully understand the implications of changes such as reduced species numbers, increased mean population variability, reduced mean body size, or abnormal total metabolic rate. We know about the existence of these properties, but have only a vague qualitative notion about some of the risks of changing them. We do not know if the changes we are observing fit within normal variability, including variability over evolutionary time scales, or exceed it.

Our ignorance is largely due to the paucity of ecosystem monitoring. There are few sets of data with which we can characterize complete ecosystems. There are even fewer data sets collected over time, that constitute true monitoring. Temporal and spatial variability in ecosystems and their properties remain poorly characterized. Monitoring has been a very expensive and nearly impossible task for many of the ecosystem metrics we have succeeded in observing over the short time frames of current research.

4.2.3 Neglect of extinction, speciation, and other long-term processes Concern about endangered species aside (most endangered species count as further examples of failures in conventional management), conventional approaches to management have not adequately considered long-term species dynamics. Selective extinction and speciation are among the factors that contribute to the formation of species-level patterns (Chapter 3). Because ecosystems include populations assembled from unique sets of species, the properties of ecosystems, including their structure and function, are significantly affected by natural selection at the species level (Arnold and Fristrup 1982, Fowler and MacMahon 1982, Gaston and Blackburn 2000, Levinton 1988). Over comparably long time scales, coevolutionary changes occur in altered ecosystems, some in direct reaction to human influence, others as higher-order ripple effects. These processes, and the degree to which they are abnormal, have not been addressed in conventional management. Only in recent decades has the issue of extinction been thought of as important in management by way of the contributions from fields such as conservation biology. Although human extinction has been of concern (Chapter 1, endnote 3), it has not counted in the factors and risks brought to bear in management.

4.2.4 Reliance on misleading quantitative models Current management of harvests from individual resource species often proceeds with quantitative models of their population dynamics. This treats

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

species as abstract objects that are largely separated from their environment. Factors that are intrinsic or endogenous to species (e.g., individuals which are themselves systems) are largely ignored. Single-species resource management historically has used the concept of MSY, or some variation on that theme (e.g., as in fisheries management, Punt and Smith 2001, Rosenberg et al. 1993). Changes such as population reduction or restructuring (e.g., altered age or size composition) are often the intended results of management. The benefit (evaluated in human terms) of increased production is recognized, but the associated risks are usually unknown, especially in regard to long-term direct effects and either short- or long-term indirect effects on other components of the system, including the feedback we experience. The portion of the production of a resource species that should be left to sustain other species is largely a matter left unaddressed. The unknown risks are usually assumed worth taking, given the value of the product obtained, usually a short-term economic value. In the mathematical shorthand of resource models, characteristics of species are represented by parameters, the majority of which are usually assumed to remain unchanged. However, in time scales of days to only a few years, harvesting can alter the genetic nature of exploited species (e.g., Conover and Munch 2002, Law 2001). Initially projected sustainability may lead to unforeseen problems, even overharvesting, even as defined conventionally, due to genetic alteration of the population. For example, genetic changes in age at first reproduction could involve changes that would require a new population model to calculate MSY (Conover and Munch 2002, Fowler 1995, Law et al. 1993). Ecosystems can be only partially understood by attempting to reconstruct them in models.13 We will never be able to list all parts of an ecosystem, or all the processes in which they are involved, much less understand all the interactions among them. The context of systems (systems of which ecosystems are a part) are severely underrepresented if they are represented at all. Again, our finite nature makes conventional management seriously vulnerable where we use stakeholders in unrealistic attempts to account for complexity

89

(top row, Fig. 1.1). Efforts to develop lists or models cannot fully account for complexity (in violation of Management Tenets 3 and 4). These inadequacies are of crucial importance to management and lead to causing rather than solving problems, especially in the transitive form of management where we try to control, engineer, or design ecosystems (Holling and Meffe 1996). Clearly, we need to manage our actions to account for ecosystems not only as complete units,14 but also as part of more inclusive systems and as made up of subsystems and component processes that include humans.

4.2.5 Transitive mitigation exchanges one set of symptomatic problems for another It is a common managerial strategy to require mitigating action. However, the complexity and interconnectedness of reality presents a situation in which mitigation almost always creates a different set of problems. The problem, rather than being solved, is moved to a different realm. Aquaculture, as a means of reducing harvest of wild fish, produces waste products, including biocides (antibiotics), appropriates energy, and uses water and fuel for distribution, and materials for the facilities. If we, as a species, are already abnormal in regard to the limits to natural variation for any such factors, the option is not advisable. The actual problem is not addressed. In the case of agriculture, silviculture, and aquaculture, mitigation also does not address the question of how much food we should be eating (or not eating) in order to achieve sustainability for all species and ecosystems. The prospect of undertaking aquaculture to mitigate overharvesting the oceans should force us to ask such related management questions. What portion of the surface of the earth is most sustainably occupied by the human species? If we are already occupying an unsustainably large portion of the earth, occupying more space in the practice of aquaculture or more agriculture is not advisable. Further consideration of aquaculture raises other questions in expanded form. How much food can be sustainably consumed by one species in an ecosystem or in the biosphere? How many people can sustainably participate in ecosystems

90

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

or the biosphere in their consumption of food, and all other aspects of the complexity of being part of such systems? The systemic view of conventional mitigating action recognizes that we are transferring the symptomatic expression of a problem to a different realm (or a different time or location) rather than dealing with the problem directly. If we react emotionally to these circumstances by feeling boxed in, we are directly experiencing what it means to be finite within finite systems in an infinite reality. As mentioned in Chapter 3, mitigation can involve intransitive action based on empirical patterns observed to occur in the tradeoffs among natural forces. Such would be the case if we were to attempt solving the problem of over-consumption by reducing the human trophic level. Such action would be based on the assumption that consumption rates decline with increasing trophic level, as observed in natural systems. Doing so, however, would be insufficient to solve the problems of excessive consumption, and, as seen in Chapter 6, requires further mitigation through reducing the human population. There is a correlation between population level and consumption rates.

4.2.6 Failure to reverse the burden of proof Science, as mentioned earlier, does a remarkable job of bringing to our attention the fact that there are problems in our world. We know about global warming, we know about oceanic acidification, we know about the loss of topsoil, and we know about the loss of pollinating species. A typical reaction to such news, in conventional management, is the call for more research, when it was research that exposed the problem at the outset—the observational aspect of science is crucial. The listing of an endangered species (or the listing process) is often an event met with calls for more research. Behind such reactions is the opinion on the part of some that humans are responsible—humans played a role in causing the problem. Opposition and polarization emerge, with stakeholders entrenched in taking inconsistent positions (top row of Fig. 1.1). Some point out that there is no proof that humans have anything to do with the problem. Everyone knows that there is a great deal of complexity

behind what we observe (Fig. 1.4) and there can be (and undoubtedly are) many contributing factors to the problems that we observe. Among these, humans may or may not be a significant factor. These circumstances lead to much debate, often quite vitriolic and passionate. Under such circumstances, a typical response (whether political or among special interest groups, including scientists) is to call for research to see if there is a connection between observed problems and human activities. Senators in the United States, for example, can take advantage of such situations to call for more research, knowing that it will stimulate the economy of their state. Employment is enhanced among their constituents. With these tactics, the day when actual responsible management action has to be taken can be delayed. We see such behavior in numerous cases around the world involving pollution, endangered species, and loss in biodiversity. The effort to establish a human connection to global warming was an international undertaking involving a huge cost in money, time, and expertise. The loss of biodiversity is now a matter of concern in regard to the risk of our own extinction. Rather than assuming connections between current management and the risk of human extinction, demands will be made for research that convincingly demonstrates a connection. This is a direct rejection of one of the primary conclusions of science: interconnectedness characterizes complex systems. In spite of the probability that we are contributing to such risks, calls for more convincing research are one of the most common reactions to the observation of a problem. Scientists have a vested interest in such reactions even though one of the experiences of science is that we can disprove a great many things but regularly fail to prove anything (Bateson 1979). However, more research is conducted and scientific information is produced. They contribute to the libraries full of information from which scientists, managers, and other stakeholders select and convert specific pieces (top row, Fig. 1.1) in order to derive management advice. The information is interpreted differently by different people and limited progress is made toward solving real problems. Part of the process of interpretation/translation

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

involves a variety of emotions, primarily fear. Human values, often economic values, become heavily involved in the decision-making. Objectivity is largely elusive and human values, emotions, biases, limitations, and short-term interests become heavily involved in the management process. These, in turn, become inherent to the problems we see— the problems indicative that conventional management is not working. Reversing the burden of proof is a fundamental element to more realistic management in the minds of many (Corkett 2005, Ludwig et al. 2001, Mangel et al. 1996), although it may not be as clear in its actual application as many think (McNeely 1999). In taking a precautionary approach (dealing with risks—Management Tenet 6), reversing the burden of proof is often seen as crucial. Taking the responsibility that there is even a remote possibility that there are human causes behind the problems we observe is certainly not a uniform element of conventional management. Given the complexity and interconnected nature of our universe (Management Tenet 3), the failure to reverse the burden of proof is another of the failings of conventional management.

4.2.7 Faulty assumptions and beliefs Conventional approaches to management commonly make several assumptions, all of which are invalid and contribute to causing the problems we face—both those we know about and others we have not yet identified. Such beliefs count among the factors that are involved in the complexity of reality as they contribute to the problems before us (Fig. 1.4). These assumptions are: Human limitations are inconsequential. Things that appear unimportant are unimportant. Cumulative (statistically) insignificant effects can be disregarded.

● ● ●

4.2.7.1 Human limitations are inconsequential Human limitations are not taken into account adequately in the ways we establish management goals in conventional management (top row, Fig. 1.1). These limitations involve our choices of concepts, theories and ideas to use in management.

91

They encompass our choices of information to be used in setting management objectives. They are involved in our belief that stakeholders can convert information (Brosnan and Groom 2006) in the interface between science and management. Both our strengths and weaknesses are important to consider; it seems that conventional management has achieved very limited success. Even when human limitations are recognized, the extent and effects of our assumptions cannot be measured. It is often assumed that bringing more people into the decision-making process will be helpful; however, this ignores the compounding effect of ignorance. Experts are brought into these exercises, often on “blue ribbon panels,” in meetings, advisory committees, or special congresses, but there is no means of overcoming the Humpty-Dumpty phenomenon—the inability to combine information in an objective manner (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Everyone has an opinion, but each opinion places different weight or value on the various factors that should be considered important (Plate 4.1). Conventional forms of management have no objective means to account for all of complexity or reality in a way that considers the relative importance of all relevant factors simultaneously. The human mind is incapable of such an exercise and simulation models (another way we attempt to deal with complexity) suffer from the same “incompleteness” that is characteristic of mathematics itself (Gödel’s theorem; Gödel 1931, Makous 2000). Models always make use of subsets of reality (Caughley 1981, Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007). In general, representations of any reality are always abstractions; maps are never the territory (Bateson 1972); statues are not the person; history books are not what happened; the concepts in our minds are not the reality we are trying to account for. Bringing a group of people together can result in agreement on these principles, but combining concepts still involves the risk of falling prey to the fallacy of composition (Johnson 1987). Not only can we not think of all of the factors to consider, we cannot place realistic relative importance on those we do recognize, and most combinations of partial information are very likely to be grossly misleading.

92

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

History teaches us that the things not considered in decision-making are usually at the roots of mistakes recognized in retrospect. The decisions made by prehistoric societies undoubtedly seemed logical at the time they were made, even though they so often ultimately resulted in disasters (Costanza et al. 2007, Diamond 2004, Redman 1999). The lessons of such experience emphasize the importance of trial-and-error approaches and the learning process involved. The things that our minds are incapable of considering are important to one degree or another. Evolution, adaptive management (Christensen et al. 1996, Grumbine 1997, Mangel et al. 1996, Moote et al. 1994, Walters 1986, Walters 1992) and benchmarking (Bogan and English 1994, Boxwell 1994, Camp 1995, Spendolini 1992) in business management are all trial-anderror approaches to finding ways forward in the face of complexity. Conventional management inconsistently takes advantage of what has worked out in trial-and-error processes, and fails entirely at the higher levels of biological organization. 4.2.7.2 Things that appear unimportant are unimportant Sometimes the things we think are unimportant turn out to be quite important. Believing otherwise is a failure to adhere to Management Tenets 3 and 4. Butterfly effects (Gleick 1987) are an example, and no one has found a way to account for such factors in conventional management. The effects of initial conditions are well known, documented, and experienced in the realm of complex systems simulation. A baby exposed to a minimal amount of an endocrine disrupting substance may not experience developmental problems until adolescence. We might all agree that the moon is an unimportant factor in considering the appropriate geographic range size for the human species, whereas, in reality, it might turn out to be very important in gravitational processes involved in plate tectonics that determine continental shape and size that are so important to geographic range. The roles of molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles are never taken into account in management decisions regarding fisheries, forestry, or economics, yet no ecosystem is without such components.

The butterfly effect means that an apparently minor event may have dramatically large consequences in the future. Synchronicity, nonlinearity, and the synergistic compounding of such effects in the complexity of reality are beyond the realm of conventional approaches to management. 4.2.7.3 Cumulative insignificanteffects can be disregarded Conventional management also has no means of accounting for the possibility that the combined importance of “minor” effects may far outweigh one or more of what we recognize as primary factors, even without butterfly effects. Reality is so complex that such situations are probably more common than not. This is exemplified by the equation: ex =

∞

xn

∑ n! . n=0

For x = 20 the combination of the six largest (“most important”) elements in the series contribute less than all the others combined—an infinite number, most of which are tiny. Indirect (or higher order) factors are often considered sufficiently inconsequential to be ignored. Smith (T. Smith 1994) documented an example of the assumption that higher order factors can be ignored collectively, at least temporarily. This example involved the history of “resource management” wherein Schaefer’s (1956) graphic concept of complexity led to postponing consideration of a great deal of reality. Schaeffer ranked the various factors involved in real-world systems into levels, with the primary level (direct effects) being considered the most important for investigation. People following Schaeffer’s line of thinking made the decision to confine consideration to the primary factors—assuming this path to be adequate. That decision came to influence heavily the nature of fisheries management, even as practiced at the present. Without seeing either the need or a way to deal with complexity, it was decided to deal with factors that were considered most important and leave until later the treatment of other aspects of complexity. The danger of such decisions lies in the probability that considering only a select few

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

important factors as “adequate” will overlook many other more important factors. As shown in the formula above, the primary elements of the model of the value of ex often account for only small parts of the desired result—an accurate picture of reality. In the complexity of reality, it is highly likely that such circumstances are very common; the combination of what we think are “minor factors” is more important than any one of the individual elements we think of as most important. The genetic effects of harvesting continue to be largely ignored in fisheries management (Conover and Munch 2002, Law 2001) as another example of secondary effects that, in the end, may be more important than any of the factors we believe to be so important today. Genetic effects are to be combined with the consequences of reducing resource populations on other species that use the same resources, restructuring the ecosystem, redistribution of resource populations—the list is endless.

4.3 Inadequacy of current approaches to management by focal level Individuals (humans or other organisms) are often isolated for purposes of management, as are individual species, ecosystems, or even the biosphere itself, with drawbacks summarized below. Transitive management that focuses on individuals of any species as the unit of management places disproportionate value or importance on individuals to the relative exclusion of other levels of biological organization (e.g., species, ecosystems, or the biosphere). Transitive management of species focuses on one or more species and makes individuals, ecosystems, or the biosphere secondary. Transitive management of ecosystems focuses on one or more ecosystems and makes both individuals and species secondary. Furthermore, transitive ecosystem management more often than not aims to alter or influence ecosystems to meet human needs without ensuring the needs of other species, ecosystems, and the biosphere are met.

●

●

●

In comparing management at various levels, it becomes clear that dilemmas arise when attempting to simultaneously manage individuals, species,

93

ecosystems, and the biosphere. It is important to accept the frustration of these dilemmas as real; an experience of the impossibility of resolving such dilemmas through conventional management (in violation of Management Tenet 4). From such a critique, we can begin to appreciate the viability of intransitive alternatives, and particularly systemic management, based on the complexity of reality. The success of the intransitive component of management at each level emerges as an instructive pattern. This section looks at management as applied to the focal levels of biological organization (e.g., Haskell et al. 1992). Such a comparison clearly demonstrates that “ecosystem management” cannot be achieved in isolation from management that simultaneously takes into account individuals, species, and the biosphere. Transitive isolation of nonhuman focal levels is not an option, but we can control our interactions with them—all of them. The common patterns, problems, and successes that emerge from the analysis below help define an approach applicable at all levels. Intransitive approaches, including the self-control of our species as a whole, emerge as part of systemic management. This appears to be the only viable option applicable to management at all levels. In this critique, it is helpful to acknowledge at the outset that conventional management is done by managers—individual people responsible for managing, usually at a particular focal level. Supervisors, coaches, medical doctors, veterinarians, farmers, and game ranchers are often seen as the managers for individual organisms such as employees, athletes, patients, dogs and cats, cattle, or a panda. Disease control specialists, pest control professionals, United Nations officials, foresters, fisheries managers, and legislators regularly manage in regard to species such as the HIV virus, Douglas fir, tuna, or minke whales. US fishery management councils, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, the UN Environmental Program, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (Clark et al. 1991), and legislators establish management practices involving ecosystems such as the Bering Sea, game parks, the Antarctic, forests, marine reserves, and the Great Barrier Reef. All involve humans.

94

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

4.3.1 Elements of management by focal level Management at all focal levels involves common elements. In this section, these are listed with very brief descriptions. They are then considered in more detail to clarify some of the impasses and other difficulties that are encountered in conventional management. Following this, the underlying problems that are exposed are summarized as fatal flaws characteristic of current forms of management. (a) Setting goals and objectives. Setting goals is necessary in management whether applied to individuals, species, ecosystems, or the biosphere. These goals include acquiring products and sustained production. Other goals include influencing the system to achieve specified states or products and services as well as to identify a more scientific basis for management. Applied transitively, management goals put primary interest on the focal level (individual, species, ecosystem) of management to the relative rejection of interest in other levels. (b) Making tradeoffs among goals: goods and services. The objectives of conventional management are biased toward obtaining goods and services of value to humans. In addition, varying and often unrealistic value is placed on other species, ecosystems, or individuals. We have no means of resolving conflicts when these values lead us in different directions. Objective resolution of conflict is impossible when action at one level causes problems at another in conventional management. (c) Monitoring. Components of any system (individuals, species, ecosystem) may be monitored (e.g., see Davis and Simon 1994b regarding ecosystems). However, conventional management pays uneven attention to monitoring systems of which the focal system is a part. The degree to which action seems necessary is based, in part, on comparing information collected in monitoring with normative information, typical states or other standards of reference. Genetically-based characteristics are, to varying degrees, involved in normative standards; they are more frequently ignored for species than for individuals. The concept of selective extinction and speciation opens the option for comparable consideration for various sets of species and

particularly those represented in ecosystems. Necessity for action is partly based on knowledge of the risks of both action and inaction. (d) Evaluating for comparison with norms. Avoiding abnormality applies at all levels. It is recognized that natural variability and its limits have both genetic (inherited) and environmental components. In conventional management, loss of the focal system (e.g., death of individuals or extinction of species) is a risk given higher priority than would be the case if they were treated, along with other risks, as natural processes. When such ecosystem- or biosphere-level processes occur at abnormal rates there is cause for concern. (e) Evaluating relative risks and benefits. Conventional decision-making cannot account for all risks (e.g., death and extinction) and benefits, nor can it provide an objective evaluation of the tradeoff among them. Perhaps most important is the inability of conventional management to solve the dilemmas that arise in attempts to balance the tradeoffs when conflicts emerge. (f) Identifying the cause(s) of problems. Managers want to know the causes of observed changes in a focal system, whether the changes are desired or undesired. In conventional management, information about cause-and-effect relationships is usually demanded in the form of proof or convincing scientific information. (g) Assessing management options. Options for action are assessed in light of identifiable costs, benefits, and likelihood of success, including effects at other levels, and whether or not they are within our power to accomplish. However, many of these are unknown. It is particularly important to identify the appropriate level of biological organization at which action should be directed. In current practice, management action is often designed for symptomatic relief when the root cause of unwanted change is difficult to identify or change. It is critically important to define when, where, and how control is an option. Control is usually maximized by controlling our influence on the nonhuman rather than controlling the nonhuman. (h) Taking management action . In many cases, action is taken following the considerations of the elements of management listed above.

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

The following is a more detailed consideration of each of these elements of management with attention to the failings of conventional management, emphasizing the difficulty of simultaneously applying it to individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere.

4.3.2 Setting goals and objectives Generally, management actions are directed towards a set of goals and objectives. For management of individual organisms and species, these typically include: Obtaining goods, services, or performance, and meeting the needs of the focal unit. Detecting problems through monitoring. Maintaining the focal unit in a phenotypic state capable of providing goods and services,15 often making use of genotypic standards or reference points. Protecting, maintaining, or even producing a genotype compatible with both the environment and the other objectives.16

●

● ●

●

Note that attaining these goals depends on scientific underpinnings in the form of knowledge of the attributes (including needs) of individuals, species, and the species sets represented in ecosystems, plus their interactions with their environment. Therefore, another goal of management is to provide the scientific information necessary to achieve objectives like those listed above. In conventional approaches, goals related to other focal levels are often secondary and are pursued only if the solutions are also advantageous to the identified focal level. Often goals for other levels are sacrificed for the benefit of individuals, especially individual humans. This produces conflict in the human experience of management because different values are placed on different focal units or levels. This ignores the fact that what is good for the part can be to the detriment of the whole (combinations 5 and 6, Table 3.1). This inconsistency violates Management Tenet 4. Following the pattern for individuals and species, conventional “ecosystem management” or “biosphere management” would have the same categories of objectives. Ecosystem or biosphere

95

properties would be maintained so as to ensure the capability of providing goods and services sustainably—not just for humans but for all species. This would be accomplished while using standards of reference for the nature of ecosystems based on a phenotypic view of ecosystem structure and function (i.e., based on the concept of selective extinction and speciation). An ecosystemlevel genotype compatible with the environment, human needs that can be met sustainably, and a normal risk of extinction for any species (including humans) would be an important achievement. As management is currently practiced, maintaining the integrity of ecosystems or the biosphere is much less important than maintaining the integrity of species or individuals at the other levels of biological organization. In spite of the potential for problems, incorporating the concept of selective extinction within conventional sciences provides a scientific basis for transitive management of ecosystems in parallel with the conventional approaches at the individual and species level. The characteristics of ecosystems (e.g., metrics such as mean trophic levels, mean variability in population size, mean potential evolutionary rates of the sets of species represented in them) emerge from mechanical and selection processes and have a genetic component. However, these concepts are not as well accepted for ecosystems as they are for individuals and species, to the extent that the concept that ecosystems have evolved characteristics is occasionally rejected (e.g., Golley 1993). The conflicting goals that arise in simultaneous consideration of transitive management applied to individuals, species, and ecosystems remain unresolved. What are perceived as goals for maintaining ecosystem health (systems within the normal ranges of natural variability) often run counter to the goals we commonly seek for the human species and especially those we seek for individual humans. These conflicts become even more obvious in “ecosystem management” carried out in parallel to conventional management as applied to individuals and species. Managing ecosystems for their own sake can lead to arguments supporting the complete removal of humans for the good of ecosystems. This is a problem (such action would be in

96

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

violation of Management Tenet 1). Identification of a problem is progress, but conventional approaches have failed to find solutions.

4.3.3 Making tradeoffs among goals Whether the focal level of management is individuals, species, ecosystems, or the biosphere, achieving the objectives of management usually requires tradeoffs (different from mitigation) among conflicting goals as well as maintaining system integrity and minimizing risk. Management of individual organisms may be aimed at obtaining or maintaining products such as labor or services. Health is also an objective. A racehorse or office worker exemplify individuals. Individuals can be sources of pleasure, work, blood, tissues, and organs for various purposes. Health is achieved when body weight or temperature are within normal limits. The pursuit of goods and services from individuals must be weighed against the consequences of demanding too much; for example, working one’s employees or racehorses too long or strenuously can result in injury or illness. Death is avoided for humans and sought for resources. We decide to kill some organisms for food—the extreme in sacrificing the health of the individuals that are killed. Current management of species often aims at controlling a species’ interference with production of goods and services, for example pests such as disease organisms, parasites, and weeds. Another common goal is breeding for genetic lineages useful to humans (e.g., domesticated animals and plants for their fur, food, fiber, and chemicals). The populations of some species are managed for the benefit of tourists and the tourist-based economy, as in African game parks. However, we cannot control or contain the responses species exhibit in reaction to our actions to achieve these ends, much less control the reactions among other species associated with a species we are attempting to control. Maintaining the health and integrity of a species is often at odds with the goods or services to be achieved; balance is often sought between the risks of extinction and the goods derived. The smallpox virus may be driven to the brink of extinction, the ultimate of poor species-level integrity,

in exchange for eliminating the associated risks of human disease. Management aimed at ecosystems or the biosphere also has various tangible and intangible goals that may conflict, just as for individual organisms and species. Ecosystems or the biosphere may be “managed” to enhance production of food, oxygen, shelter, decomposition of waste, prevention of soil erosion, detoxification of harmful chemicals, and the fulfillment of aesthetic needs such as those related to outdoor recreation, ecotourism, religion, and psychological well-being. Individual organisms depend on ecosystems and the biosphere to meet the necessities of life whether human or nonhuman. All species, whether human or nonhuman, depend on ecosystems. Whether or not any particular species goes extinct depends, in part, on dynamics within such systems, including the loss of other species. Thus, one of the services of ecosystems and the biosphere is sustaining constituent species—human and nonhuman. Management at the ecosystem level must find balance between human demands and nonhuman demands for ecosystem services. Management at the ecosystem level must find a balance between meeting human needs and the associated risks to ecosystem integrity, including the risk of human extinction. This is a balance we fail to find in the analysis of simulation models as abstractions of the system(s).

4.3.4 Monitoring and evaluating through comparison with norms As emphasized above, the state, condition, integrity, or health of all levels of biological organization are important to management focused at any level. Attributes at each level must be monitored. For individual organisms these are exemplified by blood pressure, photosynthetic rate, body size, temperature, emotional state, pulse, metabolic rate, behavioral characteristics, blood chemistry, respiration, and nutrient intake. For species, characteristics such as population size, age at first reproduction, mean body size, geographic range, and others exemplified in Chapter 2 are (or can be) monitored. A number of ecosystem traits have been identified17 and many are monitored, but with much greater logistical difficulty and with much

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

less success than for individuals. The biosphere is also monitored, and the fossil record provides little to go on in regard to the limits of its natural variation for characteristics such as carbon fixation, and rates of turnover for energy and materials (see, however, Fig. 1.2 regarding the atmosphere). We are just now beginning to appreciate extinction rates as characteristic of the biosphere with variability within limits. Measures of characteristics like these serve as indices for evaluating changes from the normal ranges of natural variation. Monitoring is intensified if there are signs of problems that require action. Ideally, monitoring can pertain to specific parts of an individual (feathers, eyes, leaves, hearts, or other organs), species (individual organisms and sub-populations), ecosystems (individual species and communities), and the biosphere (ecosystems and species). However, parts exhibiting normal attributes are not equivalent to good health for the whole. For species, ecosystems, and the biosphere, the ill health of parts does not necessarily indicate ill health of the whole because of normal variation among the parts. For example, a species that begins experiencing lower than normal growth rate or smaller than normal body size might be in the normal process of being constrained to its carrying capacity. However, if its population size begins to fall outside the normal range of variation, there may be an associated ecosystem-level problem, assuming that population variation within normal limits is critical to maintaining the health of an ecosystem. The abnormality or normality of individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere involves genetic code behind homeostatic properties. Individuals have long been recognized as having heritable characteristics that translate to heritable traits for species. The same holds for species and ecosystems as described in Chapter 3. Thus, for individuals, species, ecosystems, and, by extension, the biosphere, there are phenotypic (observed) expressions of their genetically coded traits along with the influence of various intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The results are what are monitored in measurements taken of the observed. At all four levels, of course, environmental influences also contribute significantly to variation.

97

The sets of species represented in ecosystems, for example, vary through the processes of ecological mechanics in reactions to their environments, just as an individual reacts to environmental stimuli. Management focusing on individuals or species often includes consideration of the physical environment and its effects. If we focus on the set of species represented in an ecosystem or the biosphere, we have a situation parallel to that for individuals and species. In each case the environment is considered important to the history, dynamics, and characteristics of the focal unit. The focal unit, in all cases, is a living system and often its environment is seen as subject to management to deal with problems or objectives for the focal system when such problems appear to be attributable to the physical environment. The following section describes the typical methods for obtaining normative information, the challenge of determining the impact of human influence, and value of species-level patterns (especially frequency distributions) as sources of normative information. 4.3.4.1 Obtaining normative information For management purposes, evaluating the condition of individuals, species, or the sets of species represented in ecosystems requires phenotypical information about both the current state and the “normal” state. The normal state is measured by values commonly observed or accepted as standards of reference. The difference between the observed and the normal state is evaluated and used in making decisions. Normative information (i.e., about the normal, as opposed to abnormal state) comes from both a history of observations as well as comparative studies. Both encompass the effects of typical inherent variability and variability in response to extenuating circumstances that vary themselves. At the individual level, for example, the body temperature or heart rate of animals is influenced by factors such as age, species, time of day, season, and activity. Metabolic rates are temperature dependent; body weights vary by the time of day, food intake, age, sex, species, and a host of other factors. Ingestion and respiratory rates are the same, as are interactions between individuals and other

98

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

elements of its environment. These characteristics are the basis for establishing normative information, which can come from a history of measurements for the individual or from comparison with others of the same species.18 The health of an individual is diagnosed and evaluated based on the direction and extent of departure from normal states. Illness represents a departure from the form, or order, characteristic of the homeostatic properties of individuals under prevailing circumstances. Species characteristics also have expected or typical values, which are subject to the influence of various environmental factors. The historic values for individual species and the central tendencies of the patterns presented in Chapter 2 are manifestations of these characteristics. These characteristics not only distinguish species but also serve as standards of reference. Comparison among species for purposes of evaluation or assessment is less common than comparison among individuals. Those that are made usually involve physical characteristics such as mean body size, rather than mode of participation within ecosystems, such as rate of prey consumption or population density (although this is changing through advances in the field of macroecology). Most normative information has been derived from a history of data about particular species, rather than through comparative information from/among a variety of species.19 Normative information for ecosystems and the biosphere is rare compared to information for many species, and even rarer compared to what we know of human individuals. Hence there is relatively little experience to draw upon for characterizing typical ecosystem states and their variability in time, space, and relation to environmental factors. Nevertheless, characteristic properties such as species numbers are known to vary with conditions of the physical environment (e.g., Brown 1995, Rosenzweig 1995). Ecosystem dynamics are known to be related to numbers of species in patterns useful for comparing ecosystems (e.g., variability in plant biomass and CO2 flux: Steffen et al. 2004). The homeostatic recovery of ecosystems in the healing process of succession after severe local disturbance is one of return to form and function typical for the habitat in which they are found.

4.3.4.2 Impact of human influence The impact of humans is a major challenge in obtaining normative information for ecosystems. Like other kinds of influences, our influence results in change, which sometimes, but not often, can be documented (Appendix 4.2, Chapter 6). As true for all species, humans have always exerted influence; dramatic repercussions predate recorded history (Redman 1999). Changes, including those resulting from human influence, occur as part of natural variation among species (human influences count among the ei of Fig. 1.4). However, when changes result in abnormal ecosystem properties, such ecosystems are subject to atypical stress and can be evaluated as unhealthy. Such abnormal changes include increased rates of nutrient transfer, changes in production, decreased size distribution among species, reduced trophic level, and increased population variability (Appendix 4.2). For example, reduced species numbers is recognized as an important measure of stressed ecosystems; however, in some ecosystems under stress, species numbers may initially increase (Woodwell and Houghton 1990). Owing to paucity of data and anthropogenic effects, existing data on ecosystems may not represent normal conditions;20 means and variance are usually missing for measures of ecosystems. We are faced with a relative paucity of patterns in the variation among ecosystems. Thus, for ecosystems, even more than for species, reliable normative information is missing from the evaluation process. Measurements of ecosystems can only be compared with minimal previous information to serve as standards of reference. There is little information regarding the degree to which the characteristics of ecosystems have departed from normal, especially in relation to natural variability. 4.3.4.3 Value of frequency distributions based on patterns One valuable aspect of frequency distributions is the normative information they represent (their cybernetic quality, Fowler 2008). The growing number of such distributions in species-level patterns helps identify the traits that can be monitored both for making comparisons among individual species and among sets of species such as those represented in ecosystems. Empirical observations

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

show the nature of the sets of species contributing to individual ecosystems and others comprising the biota of the biosphere. Such information reveals spatial and temporal variability in relation to environmental factors. Frequency distributions among sets of species (e.g., the distribution of the means from various sets of species, or “ecosystem frequency distributions”) can be constructed regarding traits such as numbers of species, mean trophic level, total metabolic rate, or mean body size. This allows for the same type of comparison among sets of species (e.g., those specific to individual ecosystems as combined in ecosystem frequency distributions) as those made in comparisons among individuals and species.21 Measures of an individual ecosystem over time allow for specific assessment particular to natural changes in that system. Comparison of ecosystem traits in relation to environmental factors and monitoring their change in time helps account for effects of climate and other abiotic environmental conditions. Measuring ecosystems over space in correlation to abiotic factors such as temperature and solar radiation can achieve similar objectives. Progress may thus be possible in finding the abnormal among ecosystem, even if controlling ecosystems to restore them is largely beyond our grasp as an important aim in management (Mangel et al. 1996). Normative information is inherent to specieslevel patterns as applied to finding the abnormal for individual species (Fowler 2008, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Individual species outside the normal ranges of natural variation can be evaluated as potential ecosystem-level problems or sources (causes) of such problems. However, health among species is no better indicator of the health of ecosystems or the biosphere than the health of individuals in assessing the health of a species.

4.3.5 Evaluating for relative risks and benefits Every change, action, or influence contemplated in the management of individuals, species, ecosystems, or the biosphere involves a variety of risks and benefits. Our inability to identify all such risks and benefits is one of the main problems

99

with conventional approaches to management. Another is that we have no way of assigning realistic importance to the role any particular factor should play in decision making. Because of complexity, which increases with the scale of the system, we can never identify all the tradeoffs among the risks and benefits of any given action. Thus, in conventional management, irresolvable conflict is inevitable in attempting to adequately evaluate tradeoffs among risks and benefits. At the level of an individual organism, motivation to take action when departure from typical states is observed is based on prior knowledge of the consequences of such departures. For horses, cats, bears, or other individuals, a fever of 2 degrees is rarely fatal and may indicate only that the body is undertaking a normal healing process. However, humans with body temperatures of 108°F (42°C) are known to suffer brain death within minutes. Thus, within the reciprocal relation between manager and individual, a change in the individual’s status may mean the loss or gain of goods, services, and performance. For example, an employer assumes that a worker with a high fever or elevated blood pressure will produce less than usual or even die. Thus, fundamental among the risks recognized for individuals are the risks of death and the loss of all further options for producing goods or services, companionship, contributions toward species-level sustainability, love, and contributions to family and social life. Furthermore, intrinsic value is placed on individuals within many human cultures. This value is, in part, manifested in the importance placed on the risk of death. It is occasionally extended to pets and plants that are often enjoyed in hobbies and even individuals of wild species. However, other factors count among the risks and benefits of taking action to bring an individual back within the normal ranges of natural variation. If medical action is taken to reduce a fever, resources are used and there are other repercussions involving risks beyond the individual in question. For example, the individual with the fever may be genetically predisposed to succumbing to the cause of the fever, a condition that could be passed on to potential offspring. Benefits include the possibility that the individual is one with the intellectual capacity to find solutions to the conflicts inherent in these

100

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

complexities. We cannot identify all risks and benefits, nor can we assign realistic relative importance to them. Objective evaluation of the alternatives is impossible in conventional decision-making. Likewise for species, management action to alter a species characteristic (such as population size) to achieve either normal or abnormal states should be based on consideration of the consequences. Such consideration may be partially informed by previous action or experience, as would be the case in adaptive management (Grumbine 1997, Mangel et al. 1996, Moote et al. 1994, Walters 1986, Walters 1992). Limited information exists regarding many of the risks and benefits associated with altered states of populations, including the total population of a species. Extremely reduced populations are in greater danger of extinction. Yet normal fluctuations occur in populations, and some reduction in population level stimulates productivity through short-term density-dependent responses (e.g., Rosenberg et al. 1993). Extremely large populations (as we would judge six billion gorillas to be) represent a problem to be solved, but with consequences attendant to whatever we chose to do. A population with extremely skewed sex ratios may experience population decline owing to an inability to reproduce. An extremely dense population may suffer starvation with the risk of decline that could result in extinction. Or, an extremely dense population may offer an opportunity for diseases and parasites whose infestations could bring about the same result. The relationship between species and the people involved in their conventional management is perceived differently than the relationship between individuals and their managers. For example, there are legal rights attributed to individuals (primarily humans, of course) who can act to achieve those rights in contrast to the few rights granted to other species that have no legal recourse other than those taken by people acting on their behalf. Among the potential results of management is alteration of not only a species’ phenotype but also their genotype (e.g., Conover and Munch 2002, Law et al. 1993). Thus, genetic effects of harvesting natural populations may change their potential to produce goods and services, but risk of induced genetic alteration is usually less important in the

minds of managers than the short-term benefit, or goal, of making an economic profit or obtaining goods for human use. In contrast, selective breeding of individuals (almost exclusively individuals of nonhuman species) is done to achieve genetic alterations that will increase production of goods, services, or qualities valued by humans. New dilemmas arise as we learn more about the risks and benefits of any given action. At the species level we continue to encounter our inability to understand all risks and benefits, and continue to fail in attempts to determine their relative importance. Extinction is a recognized risk for species, analogous to death for individuals. Intrinsic value is placed on species, as embodied by the thinking behind the US Endangered Species Act. However, the potential loss of products and services (to humans) behind the protection of an endangered species is sometimes considered more important than any intrinsic, or long-term, value the species may have in its relationships with other species and ecosystems. Often, in conventional management, more value is placed on entire species than on individuals of nonhuman species; for example, a salmon species is valued more than an individual sea lion. What is the relative importance of saving an endangered population of salmon or trout in comparison to individual seals or sea lions that consume them? Management of a species may entail killing individuals as a source of products for human use, yet preservation of species requires limits on mortality. How do we find an objective balance in such opposing values? In extending our management of a species and individuals22 to include ecosystems and the biosphere, accounting for the risks of altered system states is even more important and more challenging. With the complexity of ecosystems and the biosphere, we need to recognize with even greater clarity the impossibility of ever being able to list all the risks and benefits, let alone measure them or assign relative importance to them. Our current forms of management fail to recognize the full suite of consequences to ecosystems and the biosphere stemming from our actions. We also fail to recognize all the effects that altered ecosystems (or the biosphere) may have on species and individuals (including humans). Such reactions

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

include extinction as one of many homeostatic processes. Both ecosystems and the biosphere, when subjected to stress, are expected to depart from their normal states. For instance, a reduction in mean body size is a common sign of ecosystem stress. This change extends beyond intraspecific processes to include the interspecific of selective extinction and speciation. The larger bodied species are often among the first to experience extinction and more smaller bodied species may emerge (Appendix 4.2). Thus, one set of risks to humans consists of whatever comes with a shift toward a higher proportion of smaller bodied species where our influence results in such a shift, whether for an ecosystem or the biosphere. Among small-bodied species are viruses, bacteria, insects, parasites, and weeds. The evolution of more virulent species and increased prevalence of disease among humans and livestock is a potential associated risk. Encouraging species desirable to humans, such as food crops, is profitable in the short-term, but there are high long-term costs in dealing with diseases and pests resulting from ecosystem alteration (Pimentel et al. 1992, 1993). Approached transitively, acting to counteract (or prevent) or to purposely cause departure from characteristic states by species or individuals would be based on our knowledge of the consequences or results of such departures in previous situations. There is limited information regarding the risks and benefits of changes in ecosystems (Ehrlich 1985, 1991, Odum 1985, Pimentel 1986, Rapport et al. 1985). In agricultural settings, some benefits are well known. However, the risks associated with ecosystems or the biosphere maintained in altered states are relatively undocumented, especially risks to ecosystems themselves. Those risks that are recognized, such as diseases and pests in monocultures (Pimentel, Acquay et al. 1992, Pimentel, Stachow et al. 1992, Pimentel et al. 1993, 1995), are much less appreciated than for individuals and species. Negative effects, from the human perspective, are exemplified by increases in pest population levels and especially pesticide-resistant species. Other impacts include the extinction of species and the fate of the survivors.

101

While some factors have been recognized, the consequences of altering ecosystems or the biosphere, whether through normal or transitively engineered influence, is and will remain largely unknown. This gap in knowledge can be blamed, in part, on our lack of experience with “ecosystem” or “biosphere management” and the lack of a welldeveloped scientific understanding and approach to the study of ecosystems and the biosphere over appropriate time scales. Existing experience with managing ecosystems (e.g., agriculture) is not enough to account for many changes in evolutionary time scales. Evolutionary changes are only recently emerging among the problems we face in such management. As a result, risks to ecosystems and the biosphere have rarely been acknowledged in management to the same extent as risks to individuals and species. In the end, the gap in knowledge is one that cannot be filled using conventional approaches. 4.3.5.1 Time scales When comparing management at the level of individuals, species and ecosystems, managers must consider larger temporal and spatial scales. Longterm goals and long-run risks become increasingly obvious in the higher levels of biological organization. One important focus of current management is to minimize risks to which humans (the managers themselves) are exposed. Naturally, the scope of risks that must be considered grows with the level of management. Managers must consider risks to all subsequent generations. Ultimately, leaving a species-level descendent of the human species becomes an issue when evaluating risks at the ecosystem level. Human extinction is virtually guaranteed in the long run, but we humans may find value in prolonging human existence over shorter time scales. Doing things that increase our chances of extinction seems counter-productive (and hardly an example of sustainability) even though, in the end, we may continue doing them.23 Long time scales in the reactions of ecosystem and biosphere impede our recognizing associated changes in management decisions. Attempting to consider both short-term and long-term time scales results in conflict. For example, scientists may identify problems that occur over decades or millennia;

102

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

while managers discount these problems because they are focusing on short-term risks and benefits. Greater awareness of historical examples of destroyed ecosystems and the collapse of human populations might help the public and managers consider longer-term impacts. (For historical accounts of precipitous declines in human populations, exemplified by near extinction on Easter Island, see Catton 1980, Costanza 1995, Costanza et al. 2007, Crosby 1986, Diamond 1986, 2004, Ehrenfeld 1993, Ponting 1991, Redman 1999, Tainter 1988, Yoffee and Cowgill 1988.) However, knowing that human societies have failed in the past only emphasizes the need to account for dynamics over longer time scales; it does not resolve, find solutions, strike a balance, or suggest specific goals; knowing the characteristics of the societies that went extinct compared to those that survive is a different matter. 4.3.5.2 Risk of extinction In the growing list of benefits and risks to be weighed against each other are the risks to individuals and the risks to species. In managing our interaction with other species, the death of individuals among other species is often promoted. By extension, in transitive “ecosystem management,” the extinction of species may or may not be considered desirable. The death of an individual is of crucial concern in management at the level of individuals, human or nonhuman. The near-eradication of smallpox, an intentional (transitive) extinction, however, meant the mortality of nearly all individual smallpox viruses. While this is consistent with the management objective of reduced mortality of individual humans, at the level of the viral species it is an extinction. For the ecosystem it changes the internal dynamics among species with serious consequences.24 Following conventional philosophy, other forms of “ecosystem management” might aim at preservation of species, even encouraging multiplication of certain species by genetic engineering of ecosystems as in agriculture. The purposeful introduction of new species has had mixed results with many extreme consequences. From the human perspective, management (whatever the focal level in transitive management) cannot be confined to consideration of the

probability of extinction of species we may value or need; it must include the risk of our own species’ extinction. Cascades of extinction and ripple or domino effects25 are typical of species dynamics at the ecosystem level. The interconnectedness within and among such systems includes dynamics involving evolution and extinction. We humans, as a species comprising an integral part of ecosystems, are subject to these and all other risks to species in ecosystems and the biosphere. The challenge for humans as managers is to participate sustainably in ecosystems and the biosphere so they can continue to sustain all species. We cannot know everything. The repeated recurrence of this observation forces the conclusion that it is humanly impossible to identify all risks and benefits that we need to know about for good management. Nor can we know their relative importance, especially at the level of the ecosystem or biosphere. The risks and benefits may be infinite in number and involve all levels of biological organization simultaneously; change at any level involves risks and benefits at all others. Transitive management focused on species often creates problems for individuals or ecosystems. Transitive management focused on ecosystems often creates problems for both species and individuals. Faced with such complexity, accounting for risks and benefits simultaneously requires even more emphasis on identifying and resolving conflicts and achieving balance. If this is humanly impossible, what are the alternatives? This question emphasizes the need to consider the replacement of the failing parts of conventional approaches with alternatives less vulnerable to human limits.

4.3.6 Identifying the cause(s) of problems To find that an individual organism, a species, an ecosystem, or the biosphere is abnormal (outside the normal ranges of natural variation) is to discover a pathology. This is important whether management is transitive (and we assume we can control the cause if it is nonhuman) or intransitive (and we take action to deal with the parts that are of human origin especially where humans are shown to be abnormal).

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

Managing in reference to individual organisms includes determining the cause of unexpected or undesired changes, especially those resulting in abnormal or pathological states (Haskell et al. 1992). This process often involves specialists such as medical doctors, veterinarians, employers, and animal trainers. It also entails complex sets of prior knowledge of challenges to the individual system. Such understanding allows distinction. For example, the symptoms of infestation by a disease organism may differ from those of overexertion; malnutrition may express itself differently from psychological stress. Finding specific causes of illness requires knowledge of cause-specific effects, including the variability of such effects and their interactions with extenuating factors. If there is no prior history or knowledge to bring to bear, guesswork and trial-and-error processes come into play. The roots of a problem may lie at other levels of biological organization. Difficulties for individuals often stem from other levels in the hierarchy of biological organization. Species-level problems can affect individuals, as occurs when a competing species is overpopulated and there is insufficient food. Microbial species present a species-level problem to individuals who become infected by them. Ecosystems that have variable populations of resource species present a problem to individuals in the form of unpredictable food supplies. Damaged ecosystems may reduce the variety of services available to an individual, fail to meet aesthetic needs or result in psychological challenges. The inevitable conflict encountered in transitive management arises from the essential reality that what is necessary to maintain an ecosystem within normal ranges of natural variation often means death among individual organisms (Table 3.1). In human values, what is good for the ecosystem may be bad for the individual. Solving this dilemma transitively, in favor of human individuals, has contributed to the problems before us. There is little acceptance of such opposing forces as natural—making natural systems what they are. What we experience as conflict is less a problem to be solved and more an experience of the reality of ecosystem dynamics. Abnormality in such dynamics is another matter. Management at the species level also entails determining the causes of altered states and related

103

risks. Specialists such as population biologists infer the causes of altered species-level characteristics based upon symptoms noted during monitoring. Different causes, such as harvests, restricted migration, supplemental feeding, diseases and selective breeding can elicit different reactions or symptoms. Documented past experience helps identify causal factors contributing to change. Species react to influence variably and a given symptom can result from various causes. Conventionally, managers use guesswork more than for individuals, as a constraint experienced from a relative lack of interspecific comparative information. The conflicts arising from opposing forces are encountered again and plague conventional approaches when we try to meet human needs and preserve or design the conditions of other species. Further examples are seen when the altered states of species may be caused by a problem at a different level of biological organization. For example, a single hunter overharvesting a rare indigenous island bird may be an individual-level problem for a species. A species-level problem for species might be a large population size that encourages evolution of predators or pathogens, which then increases the risk of extinction. An ecosystem with variable populations of prey species may be a problem for a predatory species. At the ecosystem level, and in spite of relative lack of comparative information, determining why ecosystems are altered is an integral part of conventional management. Relatively little is known about the details of ecosystem changes and their causes, compared to what is known about individual humans as biological systems or even a particular species. Information concerning ecosystem change gives some indication of the causes (Appendix 4.2). For example, eutrophication from pollution causes changes in freshwater systems in recognizable patterns; habitat fragmentation increases extinction. Such causes are often characterized generically as human impact. However, the specific mechanics of cause-and-effect relationships are not as well understood as they are for species and individuals. Furthermore, information has been gathered on only a small portion of ecosystems within the biosphere. Agricultural and aquacultural management

104

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

have provided a great deal of experience in (and relevant data for) intended change, and clearly humans are the cause behind such changes. Specific experimental work entails clearly identifiable causes of change by design (e.g., Woodwell and Houghton 1990), but well-documented causes are rare for subsequent (especially long-term) or indirect changes (Appendix 4.2), and for evolutionary changes in particular. A chief exception is the evolutionary response of pests such as fungi, paraisites, and weeds to control measures exemplified by using pesticides. We increasingly understand genetic changes caused by harvesting practices. The dilemma of opposing forces arising from interactions between hierarchies is also seen at this level. Changes in ecosystems may be required to support, or be caused by, other levels of biological organization. For example, a species-level cause for ecosystem change could occur when any particular species becomes overpopulated, uses too much energy, or shows enough population variability that extinction rates rise and reduce species numbers within the ecosystem. An individual-level cause for ecosystem change might be exemplified by the ordering of defoliation of a forest during a war.26 An ecosystem-level cause of ecosystem change would be exemplified by the emergence of excessive species numbers leading to subsequent excessive diversity-dependent losses that require millions of years to replace. Given the difficulty of monitoring ecosystems, our ignorance of their normative states, as well as the limits of science, the specific causes of ecosystem change are difficult to determine unambiguously. In conventional approaches, subjective opinions are used much more at the ecosystem level than for either individuals, species, or populations. For example, is the Hawaiian monk seal’s plight a problem for the ecosystem at large? Is the species in decline due to human impact or is it just a natural extinction about to happen normally? With further experience, the changes resulting from different ecosystem-level management actions will likely be more widely recognized and understood. This is borne out in medical, agricultural, and aquacultural settings. Monocultures almost always attract pest species. Control efforts such as use of chemical or biological pesticides and herbicides almost always

result in evolutionary responses that change the nature of interspecies interactions—not to mention the resulting pollution and effects on other parts of the system (e.g., human health). As with costs and benefits, there is little hope that we can know enough about the cause-andeffect relationships to clearly define sources of problems for every element of potential management interest. Not only can we not identify what individual organisms, species, or ecosystems we might wish to become responsible for maintaining (in transitive approaches), but we cannot identify all the causes of any given problem (Fig. 1.4). Our best hope is to identify as many as possible of the problems we experience, and especially those we cause, and deal with them insofar as we can. Part of this challenge is finding ways of being a sustainable species within ecosystems and the biosphere so as to be sustainable. This includes doing what it takes to avoid two kinds of change: 1) altering systems so they can no longer sustain us and 2) modifying systems so that they reject us (e.g., through emergent diseases). These objectives extend to other species as we extend the limits of our management to be more holistic.

4.3.7 Assessing the options for management action Human needs for the basics such as food, water, and shelter are clear, and the benefits of action to meet them are at least partially known. In management these benefits need to be weighed against the costs—at all levels, all temporal scales, and all spatial scales—to other species as well as our own (Management Tenets 3, 4, and 6 combined). Respecting the needs of other individuals, species, and ecosystems while meeting human needs is among the major challenges we face in management. Salmon need water in streams while we need the same resources for irrigation, power generation, waste disposal, and manufacturing. Science discovers that individuals, species, or ecosystems exhibit abnormality. What, if anything, should we do? What are our options? How do we weigh the risks and benefits of each option, including the option of no action? For example, how can we assess the ecological, economic, and cultural benefits of

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

protecting endangered salmon vs. the risk of economic losses from limiting the supply of water for irrigation and hydroelectric power? The complexity of what must be taken into account dictates that there is no means of human design to do so. It is humanly impossible. Science may be helpful in identifying some (but not all) of the options, but provides little or no help in weighing costs and benefits that transcend hierarchical boundaries, especially costs and benefits that are unknown. At the individual level, when abnormality is identified, we consider appropriate action, based on the risks associated with an individual’s abnormal states (symptoms). We weigh the chances of success in taking any particular action against the costs. Symptomatic relief is a common option, especially if the root causes are beyond diagnosis, or too expensive or complex to treat directly. Thus, cirrhosis of the liver may be treated symptomatically to prolong life without addressing the alcoholism that causes it. Symptomatic treatment does not deal with the deeper systemic psychological/emotional, genetic, or social conditions that may have led to alcoholism. To broaden the range of options it is also important to distinguish among causes related to other individuals, species (including that of the individual), or the individual’s ecosystem. Such distinction opens the door to more systemic solutions and also helps to identify at least some of the relative costs and benefits, assuming that the solutions are within our power to bring about. Solving problems or meeting needs for individuals, however, may create problems for other levels, again revealing conflict in opposing forces across scales of time and levels of biological organization. For example, saving a life by veterinary/medical means may increase the incidence of deleterious genes within the species’ population or lead to overpopulation (abnormal population size). The conflict in such situations is real and natural. Influence on ecosystems (which we may evaluate as negative) is necessary to meet the food requirements of individuals (usually seen as a good). In conventional management there is no means to simultaneously find, weigh, and assess all the options with the complex of risks and benefits associated with each.

105

In management applied to species, appropriate choices among options must also be made, whether meeting their needs or solving their problems. Action to solve problems may be taken after species have exhibited abnormal characteristics, and the causes have been identified. Incentive for action depends on the risks associated with a species’ abnormal characteristics. The chances of success are weighed against the costs of action or inaction. Of critical importance is the difference between what we can control and what we cannot. Problems of human origin are most amenable to solution. In such cases, symptomatic relief, rather than removal of cause, is often seen as less costly when assessed in human terms, such as an economic impact. This can occur when the root causes are beyond diagnosis, or too expensive or complex to treat directly, for example establishing fish hatcheries rather than removing dams. Values that apply to species often weigh against those of individuals; if required to prevent human extinction, individual sacrifice could be seen as justifiable. Meeting species level needs includes action at the individual, species, and ecosystem levels, but again exposes the conflict of opposing forces among the various levels of biological organization. Distinguishing the levels at which action can be taken is essential in weighing the options for action and begins to eliminate all but intransitive options. It is common practice to favor human needs over the needs of other species, but this exacerbates other problems—some to the long-term detriment of humans. Modifying ecosystems to promote resource species for human consumption is also common, often in conflict with the objective of maintaining ecosystems within their normal ranges of natural variability for things like biodiversity. The failure of conventional approaches to management is largely due to our inability, because of the complexity of reality combined with our finite nature, to weigh all costs and all benefits of all options. At the ecosystem level, options regarding appropriate intervention or nonintervention are assessed with very little knowledge of the degree to which ecosystem conditions are abnormal or the risk of altering them. There is little to go on when departures from normal conditions are not measured or

106

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

measurable. Even when such information is available, there is little leverage for action when the risks are not known. In assessing ecosystem-level options, the chances of success and the costs and benefits of various options should be weighed, at other levels. Unfortunately, realistic assessment at the ecosystem level is again impossible because we cannot account for all factors, costs, and benefits and are unable to compare risk across different time frames and across different levels of biological organization.27 What would be the risks to human health of modifying ecosystems so that they comprise predominantly productive species with short life cycles to meet our needs for food? In the absence of an approach that addresses the complete collection of such questions, options are typically assessed by weighing a few short-term costs and benefits against a few long-term (and very uncertain or unknown) gains and risks. Decisions are generally made in favor of meeting short-term human needs, often measured in economic terms, thus economic factors count among the factors contributing to our risk of extinction. At the ecosystem level, symptomatic relief, rather than removal of cause, is almost always the option chosen.28 When conflicts arise, ecosystem-level objectives are almost always given less weight than individual or species objectives. No effective means of resolving such conflicts has been established in conventional management, especially in its transitive forms. This is a dangerous situation since the ecosystem level of complexity has more influence on its parts than parts do on the whole (Allen and Starr 1982, Bateson 1972, 1979, Campbell 1974, O’Neill et al. 1986, Salthe 1985, Wilber 1996).

4.3.8 Taking management action As managers, we know there are needs to be met for humans (both individuals and as a species), as well as other species and their individual organisms, and the ecosystems of which we are all parts. We know there are problems at various levels when individuals, species, and ecosystems show abnormal properties. We also know that there are risks and benefits to solving these problems, some of which we do not know. We know that there are

limits to what we can do. We know we are dealing with complexity—experienced in the numbers of things we know we should account for (individuals, species, ecosystems, the biosphere, and the interactions and relationships among them. We know reality is complex (Appendix 1.1). We know there are things that we do not know and others that we cannot know. The impossibility of dealing with this complexity in conventional approaches is emphasized by the failure of science to account for complexity—to amalgamate, integrate, and consider it. We know it is important to weigh costs and benefits and include those we have not identified, all reflecting the conflicts we experience and know to be within the dynamics of complex systems. Faced with all this uncertainty, decisions must be made and action taken. How does information about the limits to variation among species serve to solve many of these problems? Before delving into the answer to that question, consider a few final constraints and options. When individuals are the focal system, action must be possible and desirable and is often taken with the objective of changing the individual. An office manager may decide to reduce demands on an individual employee, a form of self-restraint and intransitive management. A coach may judge the required exercise regime to be too strenuous for a particular athlete and temper it accordingly. In symptomatic treatment, a coach faced with an athlete in pain may choose to administer painkilling drugs rather than allow rest for recovery. If cause is outside the focal system, the manager may attempt to remove the cause of the problem by modifying the larger system, for example by reducing social or economic pressures to perform that result in ill health or injury. Such options essentially eliminate the possibility of control, but may be more beneficial in the long run. When consequences are unknown, the manager of individuals may compensate with a safety factor. For example, a farmer managing a new farmhand may initially limit work requirements to avoid overexertion when thresholds for exhaustion are unknown. This is an intransitive action in which the farmer controls his demands. Similarly, a veterinarian may administer test levels of drugs to a horse if its allergic reactions are unknown, then

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

limit dosage based on the information; to avoid toxic effects, a horticulturist may apply minimal amounts of fertilizer to a valuable ornamental tree until safe levels are known. For species, whether or not action is taken may be based on the degree to which species-level characteristics are observed to be abnormal. In transitive approaches, reducing the population of a species to stimulate production is actively intended to cause such a departure (as exemplified in fisheries management and forestry). More intransitively, managers can restrict the taking of products by consumers; for example, hunters may be restricted to taking fewer deer from a declining herd than from a stable or increasing herd; that is, humans can manage humans, not the deer species—the focal unit of transitive approaches. If a disease is causing a population decline, transitive action may or may not be taken in an attempt to modify the system to remove the cause of the problem through population management of a different species. The ramifications of such actions are unpredictable in the larger ecosystem or biosphere. Options for symptomatic relief are often chosen. Thus, salmon hatcheries are built instead of removing dams; elk are fed hay instead of protecting their habitat from human settlement; chemicals are used to control pests rather than letting the ecosystem proceed through successional stages away from monocultures to more normal diversity. Symptomatic relief may deal with immediate needs, but postpones dealing with the causes to a later time, if ever. For example, feeding malnourished children saves lives but leads to increased overpopulation and intensified starvation. This can be especially dangerous if the cause of starvation is a growing population that is already overpopulated. Symptomatic relief, however, almost always exchanges one problem for another by “moving” the problem to a different part of the overall system in time, space, or process. For example, antibiotics are used to offset the effects of exposure and risks of diseases caused by the monoculture nature of the human population, geographic range size, and mobility but lead to genetic changes in populationlevel immunity. Uncertainty at the species level is at least as important as at the individual level. Variability

107

among species and variety in their reactions to environmental factors makes prediction elusive. Our experience in attempting to build models of populations reveals more uncertainty at the species level rather than more predictability. Therefore, even more speculation is used in managing species than individuals. As a result, prudence suggests an even higher margin for safety in view of the degree to which decisions are made in ignorance, if we follow conventional approaches. It must be kept in mind that the exercise of prudence, and finding a margin for safety, are part of the nonobjective process of step 4 in the top row of Figure 1.1. In management applied to ecosystems, the decision to act or not to act, or to postpone action, is taken once options have been considered. As currently practiced, “ecosystem management” is generally aimed at relieving symptoms of a problem, or meeting current human needs rather than making needs sustainable. Thus, management is often only a set of transitive, extractive population-level measures, focused on nonhuman populations, rather than self-control within the human population. These are independent of changes (desired or otherwise) at the ecosystem level or within the biosphere. Typically, transitive management does not rise to the focal level of the ecosystem. As with managing individuals and species or populations, ecosystem managers can restrict the taking of products, an intransitive approach with greater chances of success. Reducing human impact on ecosystems often is achieved by imposing limits on individual users or segments of the human population; these are examples of human self-control, but only at the individual level. Species-level management to reduce the human population is avoided socially and politically—the denial involved again contributing to the problem of overpopulation. The users and the managers are very rarely one and the same, and a great deal of human conflict often results. For example, the increases in small-bodied, rapidly reproducing species in the Gulf of Bothnia ecosystem (Rapport 1989c) might be judged excessive—partly as a result of pollution. If such an evaluation were reached, action might be to limit the amount of pollution allowed to enter the water. Discharge would be restricted by regulating

108

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

behavior by individuals, businesses, and industry, but the production of the pollutants (at the human species level) would not be addressed and, at the ecosystem level, the restrictions on industry would result in only symptomatic relief.29 Such symptomatic treatment places increasing constraint on ever-expanding human activities at the individual and group levels, while the human population increases. Thus, tourists have to have guides to visit the Galapagos Islands and game parks in Africa, commercial fishermen have to abide by restrictive quotas, parts of the Great Barrier Reef are closed to human visitation (Kenchington 1990), and camping is by reservation only in many parts of the world. Such management alternatives are an option, but to act in accordance with the focal level of the ecosystem (a collection of species), the human species (not just the individuals affected by regulations) must also be subject to management. Not dealing with the root problems, the prime example being species-level management of the human population, accentuates and prolongs undesired symptoms. In transitive management, population (nonhuman) and individual management are practiced to symptomatically solve ecosystem problems. For example, in agriculture, as pests develop resistance to chemical treatment, resources are devoted to alternative chemicals. As new disease organisms, weeds, and pests invade and evolve in ecosystems made vulnerable by their altered states, more effort is expended in disease and pest control. These are transitive actions at the population level and, by conventional standards, are options for “ecosystem management”. They maintain altered ecosystem states to meet human needs, but work against the conflicting goal of allowing ecosystems to achieve normal states.30 Such management actions may postpone some effects of human influence while exacerbating others. They do not address root causes of altered ecosystem states, so the eventual need for even more restrictions on individual humans is inevitable; in the absence of preventative action, consequences such as disease and starvation may be imposed on the human species by the larger system (something we are already seeing, Pimentel et al. 2007). Because of our ignorance concerning ecosystems and the biosphere and their complexity, a

precautionary approach is even more important than for species and individuals. This emphasizes the need to look at all levels of biological organization for solutions to observed problems and for guidance in management that applies to ecosystems.

4.4 Fatal flaws in conventional management by focal level Although systemic management (intransitive management) was mentioned briefly, the processes outlined above are largely those of conventional management. They are essentially a combination of mostly transitive with a few intransitive approaches, but usually without comprehensive, consistent guidance. They apply management to focal levels or systems as units, corresponding to individual organisms, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere. The discussion illustrates the gravity of problems introduced earlier in the chapter; it highlights several “fatal flaws” in conventional management which conspire to result in doing things that often cause rather than solve environmental problems: Inconsistent adherence to management tenets Attempted control ignores most repercussions Conflicts are irresolvable Vulnerability to the fallible, finite nature of humans Belief systems deny the gravity of these problems

● ● ● ●

●

As is beginning to become apparent, these problems are not encountered in systemic management as introduced in Chapter 1 (Fowler 2003).

4.4.1 Inconsistent adherence to management tenets Instructive patterns are seen in the problems that emerge in comparing approaches at different focal levels. As reviewed at the beginning of this chapter, these problems include failure to meet the nine management tenets: Humans are not objectively included and considered in management, usually given priority in special ways and ignored in others.

●

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

We manipulate systems to proceed as though we have control where we do not. We are far from achieving consideration of complexity, especially in inadequate considerations of ecosystems and the biosphere. There is little if any consistency in application at the various levels of biological organization. Abnormal situations abound. Risks are among the factors of complexity not adequately woven into management. Management decisions are not fully informed by anything like a complete consideration of complexity. Science is not used for its strengths, and we fall prey to its weaknesses. Many goals and objectives involve subjective guesswork.

●

●

109

in the face of environmental and anthropogenic change (Appendix 4.2). This involves the balance between human needs and the capacity of systems to meet them such that both human, other species, and resource systems exhibit normal properties.

●

● ●

●

●

●

All such problems are failures to adequately adhere to management principles developed in the Airlie House31 meetings (Holt and Talbot 1978, Mangel et al. 1996) and those developed in considerations of “ecosystem management” in recent scientific literature (Appendix 4.1, Fowler et al. 1999, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, McCormick 1999). Efforts such as the Airlie House meetings, the work sponsored by the American Ecological Society (Christensen et al. 1996), and many other efforts (Arkema, et al. 2006, Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel 1998, Fowler 2003, Francis et al. 2007, Lackey 1998, McCormick 1999) have had the expressed purpose of bringing together scientists and experts in “natural resource management” to identify the fundamental aspects of the management process. The common patterns are embodied in the nine tenets of management introduced in Chapter 1 (noting again the exception of the nature and timing of stakeholder involvement), fleshed out in the literature mentioned above, and left standing after exposure of the flaws of the transitive in conventional management. These failures were described at the beginning of this chapter and illustrated in more detail in consideration of focal level management above. Primary among goals consistently identified for management in regard to resource use has been the maintenance of resource systems in states that can provide sustained benefits and exhibit resilience

4.4.2 Attempted control ignores repercussions Management Tenet 2 emphasizes that we may influence but not control other systems. Interconnectedness is much more prevalent than we can deal with in conventional management; we cannot avoid secondary or indirect effects of our attempts to control (Fowler 2002, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). Attempts to control individuals has taught us that certain changes, behaviors, or levels of production are not possible; we cannot make an Olympic athlete out of everyone. Undesired changes often result from attempts to control, manifested as side effects, secondary effects, or cumulative effects. Employees resign, pets die, and stresses express themselves in various pathologies. The lack of control is even more obvious in managing species, as exemplified by evolutionary reactions, such as changes in gene frequency, and life history characteristics. Influence brings about changes within the systems in which managed species are represented, changes that are unpredictable and often of negative consequence to humans, including the managers. At the level of ecosystems and the biosphere, belief that control is possible is probably at the heart of impasses in carrying out successful management. Changes in reaction to our influence are beyond our control, especially evolutionary/ coevolutionary changes, which are further complicated by ecological mechanics. Because of the complexity involved in interactions such as consumer/resource relationships and consumption of common resources, it is impossible to predict outcomes in other parts of the system and even more impossible for changes at other levels of organization. The resulting changes include feedback as consequences of direct importance to us humans. Underlying the concept of transitive management is the fundamental assumption that we have control over our environment, an assumption that is refuted by the problems we face. Attempts to control ecosystems result in changes. Some may be to

110

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

the advantage of individuals and cause problems for species. Some may benefit species but present risk to individuals. The complex, unpredictable, changing nature of living systems dictates that we do not have the control over other elements of life necessary to practice transitive management over long time frames. Our ability to control is probably impossible for ecosystems (Mangel et al. 1996) and the biosphere, highly unlikely at the species level, and difficult at the individual level, even when the individual and the manager are the same human individual.32 In the final analysis, we have maximum control over ourselves.2 Now we must face the distinction between what is possible and what is not. Identifying when, where, and how control (Plate 4.2) is possible is important at all focal levels of management. Fundamental to this is recognizing that managers almost always have more control over their impacts and influence on a transitively managed system than over the nature of, or process within, the managed system. Systemic management uses self-control, which emerges as the common element of success in management regardless of the level of biological organization.33 Lack of control is clearly exemplified in the genetic effects of human influence on other species.34 This leads to the question of how to exhibit control at the human level so as to achieve objectives at all levels of biological organization simultaneously.

4.4.3 Conflicts are irresolvable So far, resolution of the conflict inherent in the interplay of managing different levels of biological organization simultaneously has not emerged in conventional transitive approaches, in violation of Management Tenet 4. Conventional approaches fail to prescribe an appropriate balance among individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere in management.35 We cannot expect otherwise because of: (1) the opposing forces between different hierarchic levels,36 (2) our ignorance of complexity, and (3) the related dynamics of emergence. Long- and short-term, broad scale and local, and ecosystem and individual objectives are often in conflict. Recognition of such conflict helps identify another major stumbling block in conventional management: there is no means of finding balance

or compromise. Intransitive management can fill this gap. It adheres to all 9 tenets of management as fleshed out in Chapter 6; it solves most of the problems identified above.

4.4.4 Vulnerability to the fallible, finite nature of humans It hardly bears repeating, but the importance of the matter is at the core of the problems of conventional management: we humans are finite, fallible, and biased, whether as scientists, politicians, religious leaders, or environmentalists. In principle, this is well understood but not fully taken into account in our choice of decision-making processes; we continue to choose the top row over the bottom row of Figure 1.1. Humans are thought to be of central importance in decision-making as defined by the role of stakeholders in conventional management. In this role, we choose, interpret, and convert partial information to management objectives. As embodied in conventional management this process epitomizes the problems described by Dante in his epic “Comedy” (later renamed Divine Comedy, Meeker 1997)—using fragments of the whole counterproductively. It involves misusing piecemeal knowledge combined with human values—eating of fruit from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” as suggested to be fatal in the Bible (Bateson 1972). It is not holistic in the root sense of the word holy; it does not involve “thinking like a mountain” (Leopold 1949). The arrogance and hubris of this problem has been the subject of many scholarly works, yet we continue with this as our way of deriving goals, policy, and objectives for management. We even see it to be so important as to train specialists to undertake the conversion process (Brosnan and Groom 2006) rather than understanding that it is an example of intellectual alchemy (converting kinds of information; Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Finding consonance between management question and empirical pattern (bottom row of Fig. 1.1) is not an option in conventional management. As will be seen, finding consonance is not a matter of rejecting the reductionistic quality of science and human thought as much as it is realistically picking the reductionistic information so as to avoid

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

misuse—getting a match between management question and scientific information (Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Hobbs and Fowler 2008).

4.4.5 Belief systems deny the gravity of these problems People involved in conventional management typically share beliefs (or assumptions) that: Using current approaches to resolve conflicts is the best we can do; inconsistency is a problem to be endured, not solved. Existing ways of considering complexity suffice; there is really no compelling need to consider alternatives, especially if they require difficult change and sacrifice. Existing ways of weighing the relative importance of various factors are adequate, i.e., through human constructs such as models, lists, and meetings (e.g., the NEPA process, Cantor 1996), especially as they bring human values into the process. We are doing things that meet the tenets of management as best possible. Human intellect is sufficient to continue following conventional approaches rather than be used to find replacements for failing parts.

●

●

●

●

●

These beliefs may be a primary factor in preventing progress toward an approach that will replace many flawed aspects of conventional management and begin to solve the problems before us. The fact that human constructs involve varying accuracy in their depiction of a particular reality is not accounted for in conventional management. Partial information only indirectly related to management questions is often brought to bear in decision making. A major contribution made by systemic management is to accept the human limits behind these errors to move to defining appropriate choices and uses of information. Science is used in a way that observes exemplars that work (consonant realities are the models, perceived and represented directly in human constructs). This is done in a way that largely relieves us from having to shoulder the load of integrating complexity and dealing with the problems of conflict, control, and repercussions. This integration is accomplished a priori as shown in Figure 1.4 (and as will be treated

111

again in Chapter 6, see also Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). We have seen hints regarding the most direct representations of reality possible (i.e., measure of real phenomena, empirical observations of real-world models) and how they can be used instead of models constructed through incomplete combinations of limited indirectly related human concepts. The information from real-world models has been illustrated in the preceding chapters (especially in the example for the eastern Bering Sea in previous chapters). These issues will be revisited in Chapter 6. With this in mind, further but still superficial development of the concept of systemic management is seen in the following section where it is extended to ecosystems and the biosphere. It explores solutions to the dilemma of conflicting objectives, finding balance among risks and benefits, and reconciling the opposing forces in nature.

4.5 Including ecosystems and the biosphere in management In conventional forms of management, we often isolate or separate the focal level of biological organization from the others (reductionism and dualism). As shown above, this approach results in irresolvable conflict and is a major inadequacy of conventional/transitive approaches: we do not know and cannot find ways to balance the objectives for individuals with those for species. The common dilemma is our inability to find ways to simultaneously meet objectives among the various levels of biological organization (from individuals to the biosphere). We have insight to the kinds of dynamics involved in hierarchical conflict through the work of people like John Nash (1950a,b). This insight does less to provide tools to figure out what to do than it does to better understand that the options for what works (and will work if we try them) appear in a natural system. To deal with the problem we confront in finding consistency in our management at the various levels of biological organization, we must fully understand that humans—as individuals, communities, and as a species—participate in ecosystems and the biosphere. A key step forward is realizing that the same is true, of course, for all other

112

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

species. All are made up of subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, elements, compounds, cells, and organs, and all occur in a larger context of ecosystems, the biosphere, and the rest of the universe. All are involved in dynamics, processes, interrelationships and complexity. Therefore, management that includes ecosystems and the biosphere should provide for the needs of individuals of all species, including humans. It should also meet specieslevel needs, exemplified by defining or prescribing the conduct of human affairs to account for the risks of our own extinction. It means management to include all other species so that sustainability is extended to them and their ecosystems. This means regulating human activities in relationship to ecosystems while simultaneously regulating human activities at other levels.37 To be comprehensive (holistic), such activities would be carried out to achieve the variety of goals listed above, including opening the option for ecosystems and the biosphere to return to normal status, even if we do not know about the limits within which such qualities are expected to vary. Ecosystems and the biosphere should not be subjected to abnormal influences (or observed to exhibit abnormality) any more than should individuals or species. Chapter 5 continues developing systemic management as it applies at various levels, including human interaction with the biosphere (Fuentes 1993, Huntley et al. 1991, Lubchenco et al. 1991, Myers 1989, Vallentyne 1993). Common among the principles and the approaches discussed at the Airlie House meetings and similar venues is the necessity of including ecosystems and the biosphere. This is a step toward considering complexity, particularly including higher levels of biological organization in the hierarchy of life. Occasionally ecosystems or the biosphere are proposed as a focal level of management. Both are levels of biological organization for which the management tenets should apply. However, in all cases of transitive management, achieving focal level management objectives transitively often creates problems at a different level. Without the intransitive (human self-control), there is no recognized process in current management philosophy for solving the resulting dilemmas and paradoxes. As seen in the previous sections, conflict is accentuated rather than resolved if we approach

“ecosystem management” or “biosphere management” transitively, with ecosystems or the biosphere as focal units. This section considers how we can carry out intransitive management in a way that resolves conflict and considers communities, ecosystems, and the biosphere with all their inherent and intrinsic interactions, processes, and other aspects of complexity.

4.5.1 Accounting for complexity Expanding the definition of management to include the conduct of human affairs at the species-level is a step toward including ecosystems because we are one of the participating species, and managing our species’ interactions with ecosystems is a singlespecies application. As a species (and as individuals, families, or communities), we influence ecosystems and the biosphere just as do all species (and their components). Our roles, our influence, and the position we take within ecosystems are elements over which we have some level of control. Defining management as regulation of these factors and influences can include (but not be restricted to) the goal of avoiding abnormal risks of human extinction along with the host of other risks all taken collectively (keeping in mind that risk cannot be eliminated entirely). In progressing toward a definition of management this way, we are left with need for guidance as to how to proceed, whether as individuals or as a species, especially in finding solutions to natural conflict. For our species, this guidance is provided in information exemplified by patterns showing human abnormality (Fowler 2008). Finding a position for humans within the normal range of natural variation would account for complexity in that complexity is integrated in such information (Fig. 1.4), through what is observed naturally rather than through human constructs (i.e., moving stakeholders from the top row to the bottom row of Fig. 1.1).

4.5.2 Resolving conflict How do we account for all of complexity, and at the same time find the necessary balance among the opposing forces that emerge as conflicts that are irresolvable in conventional (primarily transitive) approaches? We do so by managing systemically

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

wherein reality-based patterns provide consistent guidance (Hobbs and Fowler 2008). The resolution of conflict is one of the main accomplishments achieved by following observable empirically successful examples of sustainability. The patterns we see are products (Fig. 1.4) of the very opposing forces that give rise to what we experience as conflict ending in debate (Fig. 1.1). Conflict is resolved when interpreted as the forces integrated by observed phenomena (we understand this based on Nash’s insights without using the insights but rather use the empirically observed results of natural processes). As we will see in Chapter 6, empirical solutions exist in the examples provided by other species, as tenuous and vulnerable as they are. As such, the sustainability, options, and guidance exemplified by other species are made available to us in information about the limits to the natural variation among them, as seen in species-level patterns (e.g., frequency distributions, Fowler and Hobbs 2002). These species have emerged, through processes including the trial and error dynamics of selective extinction and speciation, as a trial and error (or Bayesian-like integration, Appendix 4.4) process, as exemplars—some more so than others—of the very limited sustainability that is achievable. They have so far escaped extinction by solving the problems of conflict experienced in the opposing forces among the various processes of nature. Humans potentially have an advantage over other species due to our capacity for creative imagination, intellectual reasoning, introspective epistemology, and behavioral adaptability and resilience. Guided by the experience of other species, we may be able to optimize these advantages. The alternative is to succumb to the forces of nature, and fall prey (for example) to Combinations 5 and 6, of Table 3.1— especially Combination 6—through forces that lead to the risk of our extinction. The selective forces of nature, whether at the level of the gene, individual, or species, present all species with the same dilemmas, manifested in the conflicts and management issues we must address. Contributing to conflict are the opposing forces in natural selection generically described in Chapter 3 and modeled in Appendix 3.2. Empirically observed species frequency distributions exemplified in Chapter 2 represent the balance struck in natural systems—today of course, including all

113

human abnormality. These balances include those among the various forces of the nonevolutionary processes and between these forces and those of natural selection at all levels. The categories represented by the most numerous species represent the best examples of a full accounting of risks as manifestation of the balance struck in nature among the same naturally occurring, opposing forces that pose dilemmas for humans. Among the risks accounted for are those that simultaneously fully account for the benefits and the interplay among them. For example, a normal risk of extinction equals a normal chance of continued existence as a species (i.e., sustainability; Management Tenet 6). Thus, under normal circumstances, existing individuals, species, and ecosystems represent transient evolutionary solutions to the problem of long-term sustainable existence within living systems. Existing life forms are the result of a successfully achieved balance (as dynamic balances or trajectories toward elusive balance) among opposing forces, even if it is temporary in geological time scales. By mimicking the solutions existing individuals, species, and ecosystems offer by example, we find a solution to the fundamental dilemmas of management outlined above. This approach is as value-neutral38 and objective as possible; these life forms represent examples of options that account for risk to exemplify sustainability—they are not yet extinct. The world’s ecosystems and biosphere have endured human abnormalities for only a geological instant compared to the time we and most other species have been around. How is it that we solve the problems of conventional management by adopting systemic management? What is it about Figure 1.4 that means we have dealt with complexity (and have dodged the dilemma of conflict if we use empirical information to guide management)? The following section explains how the information in Chapters 2 (and, later, 6) can guide us to achieving sustainability in a way that addresses these questions by managing our relationships with other species, ecosystems and the biosphere.

4.5.3 Nature’s Monte Carlo experiments in sustainability What do the dynamics of selective extinction and speciation have to do with patterns being integrative

114

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

accounts of the infinite of reality? What does Chapter 3 have to do with Figure 1.4 in accounting for complexity? As described in Appendix 4.4, an analogy can be drawn between selective extinction and speciation on one hand, and the Monte Carlo (randomized experimental) aspect of Bayesian statistics (Howson and Urbach 1991) on the other.39 Species are nature’s trial-and-error models of success, as tenuous as it may be, reflective of all the factors involved in their emergence. These factors take the place of data used in Bayesian statistics wherein probabilities are represented in quantitative models.40 The probability distributions represented by species frequency distributions carry information, part of it in genetic code (DNA), parallel to the computer code used in Bayesian models (Fowler 2008). Thus, species frequency distributions, as probability distributions, reflect the constraints known to operate in natural systems (Fowler and Hobbs 2002). They are cybernetic in nature. Existing species represent an integration of all factors in their environment, history, explanation, and nature (Belgrano and Fowler 2008; Fig. 1.4). They are, in part, products of natural selection, including those expressed through selective extinction and speciation—the risk of extinction is taken into account. They include an integration of all other factors that come into play, such as measurement error and the complete suite of ecological mechanics, including anthropogenic influence and the associated belief systems. The opposing forces that give rise to irresolvable human conflict in conventional approaches to management are among the factors involved. The resolution of dilemmas is inherent to natural patterns. As such, natural patterns represent practical information for use in systemic management, characterized by intransitive coping, succeeding, surviving, or getting by without abnormal influence on larger systems such as ecosystems and the biosphere—largely prevented by the constraints of the more inclusive systems. 4.5.3.1 Including other hierarchical levels Natural selection, combined with the other forces of nature, provides a valuable source of information for guidance in conducting human affairs, precisely because of the way the resulting patterns integrate, and account for complexity (Fig. 1.4). The

frequency distributions of individuals, species, and ecosystems serve not only as normative information for evaluating systems at the respective levels, but also as a basis for identifying the need for action. Action without control is ill-advised, but control can be exhibited in human action guided by examples of success. In conventional transitive management, the complete set of risks and benefits of action are rarely (if ever) identifiable, owing to complexity and lack of experience. However, solutions to such problems have evolved as exemplified by other individuals, species, and ecosystems, emerging within the context of this complexity and attendant risks (i.e., nature’s multilevel Nash equilibria, Nash 1950a,b). The risks are part of the forces within the evolutionary processes contributing to the observed species frequency distributions. At the individual level, we already use such an approach. For example, comparisons among individuals within a species establish the most riskaversive body temperature, body mass, blood pressure, respiration, and ingestion rates, even our interactions with other individuals and species: values close to the average (or those that maximize biodiversity, Fowler 2008). We learn from role models; as individuals we are partly who we are based on our interactions with other people. Successful forms of interpersonal relationships emerge, just as body temperature evolved as a sustainable solution to a complex set of factors, including chemical, physiological, and environmental elements. Even if one knew all the factors involved and how they operate mechanically, it would be impossible to predict an optimal body temperature a priori. Likewise, when faced with managing multiple levels of biological organization we can be guided as a species by existing examples of successes represented by other species. We can understand ourselves as a species defined, in part, by our interactions with other species. We determine safe body temperatures, heart rates, and behavioral traits by the empirical examples of other individuals. In parallel (including another hierarchical level, or logical type, Bateson 1979), other species represent empirical examples of sustainability that are informative for our species. For example, when faced with the need to estimate a sustainable harvest of a resource species, guidance

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

is found in the frequency distribution of consumption rates by other species that feed on the resource in question (e.g., Fig. 2.6). Restricting our consumption rates to avoid the abnormal within the limits observed within empirical data on consumption rates is an example of intransitive management applied in a single-species approach (control of our species in interaction with another). At the ecosystem level, this approach would mean confining overall human consumption to the limits of consumption rates observed for other species from a particular ecosystem (e.g., Fig. 2.7, Fowler and Hobbs 2003). At the biosphere level, it would be achieved by confining consumption by humans to within the limits of natural variation in consumption among nonhuman species for the earth as illustrated in Figure 2.10. Other ecosystem level applications involve, for example, the advisable numbers of species to harvest.41 At the biosphere level we are also faced with the larger question of how many humans can be sustained. Here distributions regarding population density (Figs 2.16, 2.23, and 2.31), geographic range size (Fig. 2.27), and population size (Fig. 2.17) provide guidance. 4.5.3.2 Effort and sacrifice (management) rather than conflict Existing species represent the current best examples of adaptive management as carried out through natural processes.42 Characteristics shared by the species most numerous in their frequency distributions are likely to represent evidence of optimal forms of successful risk aversion and benefit maximization—mutually workable relationships between them and their environment. Risks and benefits include those associated with ecological mechanics and with the reciprocal interaction between hierarchical levels—between systems and their components. This includes both the supportive (e.g., provision of materials and services) and the limiting (materials and services are finite and shared among components) functions of ecosystems for humans as one of many components. No risk or benefit is excluded from the information of frequency distributions, and all are included in proportion to their actual relative importance. Examples of sustainability include the goods and

115

services provided/used within the limits established by forces operating within ecosystems (or the biosphere). Characteristics of common and enduring species represent minimum risk solutions while characteristics of rare species or kinds of species with high turnover represent maximum or higher risk solutions. Characteristics of highly abnormal species (completely outside the normal ranges of natural variation) represent extremely pathological and high risk situations (as often the case for humans; Fowler and Hobbs 2002). For the human species to achieve sustainable species-level characteristics that emerge in the constraints on variation among species will, in many cases, require individual-level sacrifice. What were unresolved conflicts now become identified sacrifices in the form of actions necessary for achieving sustainability. These are sacrifices individual humans can make to contribute to sustainability in achieving balances inherent in the forces of nature or complexity in general. Costs are inherent to achieving sustainability by accounting for all risks, including risks such as our own extinction. These are short-term human costs for long-term human good (including long-term good for all associated systems—for example, other species, ecosystems, and the bioshpere). Individual sacrifices (or, more positively, contributions) toward achieving sustainability go well beyond contributing to an environmental organization, recycling, and driving eco-friendly vehicles. The extent of changes necessary to achieve sustainability will be more clearly seen in Chapter 6 (e.g., see Fowler 2008). As is becoming increasingly clear to many scientists, many of the problems we face are tied to overpopulation, keeping in mind the very important fact that each problem must be treated directly on its own merits. In a typically density-dependent fashion, the need for such sacrifice will be much less after (and if) the human population can be reduced or is reduced by systemic forces (e.g., global pandemic). The issue is to decide that accounting for risks collectively (including that of human extinction) is a “good” worth working for. Sustainability can be understood as a value comparable to that of the normal for individuals (e.g., body temperature, blood pressure, etc.) but extended to embrace

116

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

all forms of life simultaneously. Sustainability is a “good” worth sacrificing for, while experiencing the disadvantages of the individual-level changes required to achieve desired species-level change. Such individual level contributions are a matter of making up for lost ground from a history in which individual level needs and short-term issues have been considered of greater importance than protecting ecosystems, the biosphere, and future generations of humans from current human excesses. Management cannot be restricted transitively to the focal level of ecosystems as described above in order to achieve “ecosystem management”. Lack of control, unpredictable reactions, and intensified conflict lead to feedback and consequences we want to avoid. Problems at the ecosystem level drive our consideration to even larger systems, such as the biosphere. How far can we extend this process to include larger and larger systems (or more and more inclusive systems) before realizing we are not in control? We are left with only the alternative of controlling ourselves to limit our influence on all systems. This is the core of management because individual, species, ecosystem, and biosphere cannot be separated in terms of application and complexity. There may be a transcendent quality to the emergent nature of the more inclusive systems but it always includes its components through the interconnected quality of nature. Mimicking nature’s examples of sustainability at the species level (Fowler 2008) places proper importance on ecosystems, partly because ecosystems are made up of individuals and populations of unique sets of species. Species are exposed to the constraints of larger systems such as ecosystems and the biosphere. Greater weight is given to the species level than the individual level because species are made up of individuals. Even greater weight is given to ecosystems and the biosphere for the same reason. This pattern in weighting stems from the fact that constraints of more inclusive systems confine the constituent elements. It is a natural weighting that negates the option of human design. The reverse effects, of a similar nature, emphasize that parts of systems can never be ignored (e.g., if all individuals of a particular species die the species goes extinct). Other than the balance struck in the evolution of existing species

and sets of species, there is no means of weighting things for which we have no measures. A transitive approach cannot be used to sustainably “manage” ecosystems, and even less so the biosphere.

4.6 The case for systemic management We are left with the option of guiding human affairs, by the example of other species’ successes, toward sustainable species-level participation in (influence on) ecosystems and the biosphere. This approach meets Management Tenets 4 and 5 and accounts for the various hierarchical levels of biological organization with empirical examples. It is an intransitive approach, which applies Management Tenet 3. It is based on the acceptance of individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere as inseparable; this acceptance of inseparability is needed to meet all of the management tenets, especially Management Tenets 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7. It is not called “ecosystem management” partly because that term implies potential for focal level success in transitive management, an approach that has been rejected as impossible. It is also not called “ecosystem management” because it is not restricted to our interactions and influence on ecosystems (it includes other species, groups of species, and the biosphere). Systemic management considers individuals, species, ecosystems, and the biosphere as parts of an amalgamation that makes them inseparable differentiated elements of reality. Our interactions with all levels make up the parts of systemic management. In the game of evolutionary dynamics, the objective is to stay in the game. Although the presence of any species is tenuous, the genetic code of species that have succeeded in staying in the game is information about how the game might best be played.43 This information is illustrated by the species-level patterns shown in previous chapters (with more to be seen in Chapter 6) and especially those yet to be discovered and better portrayed in their interrelationships and relationships with the environment. Each distribution includes insight from information found in genetic codes. Through systemic management, humans are the managers and also the ones who are managed.44 We have insufficient control over other elements of life,

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

and the laws of nature, to proceed otherwise and we court disaster by pretending that we can control. Although far from complete (we cannot control that our influence has consequences), our greatest control is over ourselves to find a sustainable level of influence. As argued above, we are best served in this regard by conducting human species-level affairs in accord with examples of sustainability demonstrated through the limits observed in variation among nonhuman species. One of the many reasons for doing so is to account for the risk of human extinction. Extinction is one of the processes that contribute to rarity of species within the tails of frequency distributions (Chapter 3). In following the guidance of information from species frequency distributions, the elements that have been identified as important to account for in “ecosystem management” are integrated into the process (see Appendices 4.1 and 4.3 and Management Tenets 1–9, Chapter 1 and above). In practice, this means finding the species-level patterns consonant with management questions that we face (Belgrano and Fowler 2008). Decisions and policy can then be based on mimicking natural examples of sustainability by constraining human activity so as to avoid abnormalities. This is an implementation of Management Tenet 5 (Fowler and Hobbs 2002, Mangel et al. 1996). Proceeding this way is precautionary. We will see numerous examples of guiding information in Chapter 6.45 A primary scientific constraint and difficulty is finding information that represents the normal range of natural variation in a world so heavily influenced by humans. The primary challenge, overall, is management action based on that information.

4.7 The eastern Bering Sea example The typical transitive approach to managing an ecosystem such as the eastern Bering Sea is to manipulate the abundance of nonhuman species and thus the composition of the ecosystem. Typical goals are to stimulate greater production of resources for harvest/utilization by humans. Typical methods are to apply incentives or disincentives to limit or promote fishing of certain species, or to close certain areas or seasons to fishing. Often, in ecosystems more generally, these methods are based

117

on knowledge of predator/prey relationships, with the thought that we can replace competing predators, or the belief that if we control predators there will be more of their prey available for human use. For example, a species such as the arrowtooth flounder in the eastern Bering Sea might be seen as over-abundant (population size beyond the normal range of natural variation for such species), as reflected in its position in the frequency distribution of consumption of walleye pollock (extreme right of the top left panel of Fig. 2.6). One option, in conventional management, would be incentives to increase harvest of the flounder to reduce its population. Such an approach always has consequences that are unanticipated and contrary to our desires. Some experts or stakeholders involved in the decision-making process might foresee some of the consequences and argue against actions being contemplated—creating conflict without resolution. This is typical of conventional management, stakeholders have varying opinions and interpretations regarding specific parts of the information used in management (top row Fig. 1.1). It does not result in objectives consonant with management questions in a way that accounts for complexity. It does not account for secondary or other higher-order effects the actions will have, or the fact that many of these effects are both unknown and unpredictable. It does not consider evolutionary reactions to human influence that have already been set in motion (also unknown, unpredictable, and especially unprovable with current forms of science and logistic constraints), nor those that would be initiated by such action. The repercussions for us as managers are unknown. Species-level patterns that fail the test of consonance (match with the management question, Belgrano and Fowler 2008, Hobbs and Fowler 2008) are not the basis for managing other species transitively. In the eastern Bering Sea, the process of conventional management is perhaps most clearly exemplified in the certification of the walleye pollock fishery as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council in 2004. This typifies action by a group of scientists, managers, and other stakeholders in rejection/violation of Management Tenet 5. The decision to certify the fishery as sustainable was

Portion of species

0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0

Portion of species

0.3

Portion of species

an exercise of decision-making depicted in the top row of Figure 1.1 and described above. The decision rejected the abnormality of the commercial catch of this species (Fig. 1.7 and top panel of Fig. 4.1, Fowler 1999b, Fowler and Hobbs 2002, 2003, Fowler and Perez 1999) as a problem to be solved. Instead, the certification was based on artificial combination, interpretation, translation, and evaluation of less relevant piecemeal information. Also involved, of course, were the values, belief systems, thinking, and habits behind conventional management. Economic factors played a role. In this example we see a clear connection between conventional management and abnormality; certification embraced the abnormality as acceptable. In contrast, fully embracing Management Tenet 5 (especially in combination with Management Tenets 1 and 2) would lead to the conclusion that the fishery is certifiably unsustainable. Overall, this example makes clear the vulnerability of current management to the subjectivity and fallibility of human nature. As in all of conventional management, the action taken by the Marine Stewardship Council was not malicious, or ill intended. It was a matter of doing the best possible using the paradigm behind conventional thinking in attempting to achieve an optimal outcome—again defined through conventional approaches and the values involved. The same holds true for all aspects of management in the eastern Bering Sea. The harvest of resources is carried out without objectively addressing questions such as: “What is sustainable age or size selectivity within the commercial harvest of walleye pollock (or any other species)?” For the most part, such questions are not posed as clear management questions (top row, Fig. 1.1). What portion of the eastern Bering Sea should be set aside in marine protected areas? What portion of the geographic range of any particular species (e.g., Steller sea lion, fur seal, walleye pollock, thick-billed murre) in the eastern Bering Sea should be set aside in marine protected areas? Decisions to harvest at rates, in locations, at times, and with selectivity that are abnormal compared to other species clearly contribute to the abnormal influence we have in, not only the eastern Bering Sea, but all ecosystems. Again, such decisions are not made maliciously. In fact, those making

0.3

Portion of species

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

0.3

Portion of species

118

0.3

Humans

1

0.2

Pollock (single species, population)

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

Humans

Finfish (species group)

0.1 0.0

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

Humans

0.2

Bering Sea (ecosystem)

0.1 0.0

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr) Marine environment

0.2

Humans

0.1 0.0

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr) Biosphere

0.2 Humans

0.1 0.0

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 log10 (biomass consumed, t/yr)

Figure 4.1 Species frequency distributions showing the rates at which marine mammals consume at various levels of biological organization within the eastern Bering Sea, the marine environment, and the biosphere showing consumption by humans in comparison to provide initial indications of the kinds of changes we will have to undertake to fall within the normal range of natural variation (from Fowler 2002, Fowler and Perez 1999).

the decisions are responsible caring people. They are people doing the best job possible within the confines of conventional management, knowing that we humans need food, the fishing industry depends on catches that are economically viable, and that the productivity of resource populations is stimulated by being harvested.

WHY CONVENTIONAL MANAGEMENT DOES NOT WORK

By contrast, systemic management has the goal of providing for human needs while simultaneously and consistently ensuring that such needs are sustainable and can be met sustainably. All species depend upon the sustainability of the services that ecosystems provide. The methodology involves the use of species-level patterns (species frequency distributions) as guidance for sustainably harvesting fish biomass, by mimicking other species’ proven (though imperfect) examples of sustainability. For example, increased harvests of arrowtooth flounder might be part of the strategy, but harvest rates would be restricted to avoid abnormal levels (i.e., a pattern such as shown in the top panel of Figure 4.1 for walleye pollock, using such a pattern that would be developed for the arrowtooth flounder). Such an intransitive approach is not restricted to providing guidance for the harvesting of an individual species from a particular ecosystem such as the eastern Bering Sea. It also provides guidance for harvesting from species groups and other ecosystems as well as extensions to include the entire marine environment and the biosphere (Fig. 4.1). We are left with several issues that have yet to be adequately addressed. In particular, there is the matter of human influence as a factor in contributing to what species-level patterns are today (Fig. 1.4). The sustainable take of walleye pollock as exemplified by nonhuman consumer species might be a greater fraction of standing stock biomass if their populations were larger. However, if the predator populations were larger, the walleye pollock population likely would be smaller. These and other factors cannot be ignored in dealing with complexity (as required by Management Tenets 3 and 4). They are part of the difficulty we face as a result of a history of practicing conventional management without accounting for complexity. However, harvesting one species is only one isolated example of management that needs adequate guidance. There are directly related questions: What should management establish as an appropriate age composition for the harvests? What should the harvest rate be if we take only adult fish? What are the optimal levels of harvest in terms of numbers of individual fish rather than biomass?

●

●

●

119

How can we best allocate takes over season and space (including depth)?

●

Management expands to similar questions for other species, groups of species, other ecosystems and the biosphere: What is the optimal number of species to harvest? What amount of biomass and numbers are to be taken from entire ecosystems? At what level should we be producing pesticides or carbon dioxide that find their way into various ecosystems around the world, including the eastern Bering Sea.

●

●

●

As we are beginning to see, these are also issues that can be addressed through systemic management. By ignoring complexity, conventional singlespecies management may create what we would conventionally evaluate as problems at the ecosystem level (including extinctions). Systemic management might do the same. There are two points: (1) there are consequences to our management no matter how we proceed and we will often judge some negatively; and (2) we cannot confine our management to one issue because complexity demands that we address as many issues as can be identified. If extinction rates are abnormal, we are responsible for doing an inventory of any ways we might be contributing to see if there are human abnormalities to be corrected. Pollution may be a factor in the eastern Bering Sea and the problems we see in that system. As we will see in Chapter 6, application of guidance from species-level patterns would lead to restricted pest control (no other species produces as many toxins released in quantities that humans are using). We may be able to influence (rather than control) other species using guidance from species frequency distributions, but the extent of such influence will likely be quite limited compared to what we have historically attempted in the mission of control. There are benefits to an intransitive single-species management approach (e.g., we achieve sustainability, find balance in meeting our needs with the capacity for systems to meet them, and reduce the prevalence of pathologies

120

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

in various systems). However, the consequences continue to involve what we will evaluate as problems and many of those will occur at other levels of biological organization. Reducing the harvest of walleye pollock causes individual fishers to lose income or jobs. Harvesting walleye pollock at any level results in competition with other predators. The harvest affects the ecosystem in which pollock occur, and some of these effects may be undesirable to us, but in all likelihood would be within the normal range of natural variation. In management, control rests with humans as self-control, difficult as that may be. The numbers of species we choose to harvest, the amount of biomass we choose to remove from an ecosystem, and the amount of biomass we choose to harvest from any particular species can be based on limits apparent in species-level patterns. The quality of the data we have in hand for producing useful species frequency distributions is a factor yet to be addressed.

4.8 Summary and preview This chapter has presented examples of the failure of conventional management and some of the reasons for these failures, and has pointed toward systemic management as an alternative to solve these problems. Conventional management fails to meet the nine tenets of management. Human interests (especially factors such as economic factors) are over-emphasized in comparison to an objective accounting for our roles in ecosystems and the biosphere. That is, we fail to meet Management Tenets 1 and 2, believing that our emphasis on humans assures adequate consideration. Conventional management fails to meet Management Tenet 4 in lacking consistency in consideration of other elements of reality, and Management Tenet 3 in not accounting

for reality in general. In principle we know we are finite in being human and cannot account for all unintended consequences of our actions; yet these principles are largely ignored in conventional management. All too often we believe that we have control and lead ourselves into excessive influence, frequently to find ourselves involved in abnormal interactions with the nonhuman—in violation of Management Tenets 2, 5, and 6. We believe we can generate management advice (e.g., through meetings, congresses, panels, expert advice, political agendas, special interest groups) rather than simply looking to nature for guiding information through direct observation. We proceed this way, largely ignoring Management Tenet 3 and also 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 in spite of practical experience that tells us it is humanly impossible to account for complexity and reality otherwise. Among the factors we have failed to take into account are the many risks and their interactions—all parts of reality—and have focused on sustainable development rather than achieving sustainability. The choice and use of information in today’s management involves serious logical errors. Science is used to emphasize isolated factors rather than observe realities directly related to (consonant with) management questions in a way that meets all nine management tenets. As a result we are left with few clear directions, have few objective standards, lack adequate criteria for management action, and face seemingly insurmountable problems for which we are largely responsible. These failures leave us with systemic management as an alternative defined by the tenets of management and, therefore, a way forward so as to adhere to them all. Chapter 5 describes how well systemic management is defined by, and adheres to, the tenets of management in a way that solves many of the problems so clearly plaguing conventional approaches.

CHAPTER 5

Why systemic management works

Water is H2O, hydrogen two parts, oxygen one, but there is also a third thing that makes it water and nobody knows what that is. —D. H. Lawrence

The preceding chapters provide the background needed to understand the foundations of systemic management—a significant part being that of avoiding the abnormal. This book focuses primarily on the species-level aspect1 of such management— directed at avoiding human abnormality at the species level. Comparing our species to others (Fowler 2008, Fowler and Hobbs 2003, Figs 1.7, 4.1) provides a basis for evaluating our species. Understanding and avoiding the abnormal allows for setting goals, and evaluating our progress in achieving them. If there is hope of achieving sustainability, the process must involve our own self-control; one of the first steps is to understand ourselves as a species.2 Regulating and limiting ourselves as a species must ultimately be done by individuals, within a context of incentives, disincentives, social norms, and education created by collective human institutions and effort. However, thinking or behaving as if the human species is separable from (not a part of, not subject to the laws of) reality will not work—a lesson learned from experience in “resource management”. Systemic management addresses the state of all other systems, but not as systems under our control. Rather they are understood as systems that do, and will, respond to our actions. As systems that include self-regulating and homeostatic dynamics (Brown 1995, Camazine et al. 2001, Heylighen 2003, Solé and Bascompte 2006), ecosystems and the biosphere are capable of recovery from abnormal human influence and will respond to management to relieve them of

abnormal human influence. Our objectives for other systems will be attained indirectly through their reactions to such management, predominantly in the direction of sustainability—a state of health or normalcy. Otherwise, the combined responses of these systems to human influence will pose risks we clearly wish to avoid for all concerned. These are the risks that prevent the accumulation of species with characteristics beyond the normal ranges of natural variation as displayed graphically for patterns shown in Chapters 2 and 6; the risks that result from the homeostatic dynamics of systems such as ecosystems and the biosphere. These include risks presented by ecosystems with abnormal qualities. Systemic management is guided by a combination of factors familiar to the recent scientific treatment of complexity,3 but practical application of this guidance requires replacing at least some elements of current management.4 Previous chapters described how systemic management considers ecosystems and the biosphere as biotic and abiotic environments in which species, including humans, evolve as both parts and products, and as systems in which such components exert a variety of influences. This chapter describes how systemic management does more than embrace all of the nine tenets of management laid out in Chapter 1. It does so, fully, consistently, and simultaneously so as to largely solve other problems with conventional management as described in the previous chapter. Systemic management is consonant reality-based management. Where applied, it fully accounts for the inclusive aspects of complexity,5 121

122

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

and includes as one of its parts the management of our interactions and relationships with ecosystems to meet the need for more effective “ecosystem management” or “ecosystem-based management” (ecosystems are part of reality). Thus, systemic management is consistent at the individual, species, community, ecosystem, and biosphere levels,6 and provides guidance for setting goals and making decisions. The limitations of systemic management are discussed, as is the importance of extinction as a management issue. The chapter concludes with a basic protocol for applying systemic management with examples from another visit to the eastern Bering Sea.

5.1 Systemic management adheres to the tenets of management Haeuber and Franklin (1996) said that “ . . . we may not be able to define [ecosystem management], but we know it when we see it”. They make the case that we have made a great deal of progress in developing criteria that should be met by “ecosystem management”, but we do not have a widely accepted form of management that meets these criteria. Accounting for complexity drives the need beyond ecosystems; management must apply to all levels of biological organization, including the biosphere (Fowler 2002, Fuentes 1993, Huntley et al. 1991, Lubchenco et al. 1991, Myers 1989, Vallentyne 1993) and the Earth (Clark 1989, Myers 1993). It must account for ecological mechanics, natural selection, and processes involving the flow of nutrients, predation, and competition—all parts of complexity. This section evaluates how well systemic management meets the nine management tenets first laid out in Chapter 1 and revisited in Chapter 4 (where the failures of conventional management were documented). These tenets distill the desirable attributes of management emerging from years of effort to define it (e.g., Christensen et al. 1996, Fowler 2002, Holt and Talbot 1978, Mangel et al. 1996, McCormick 1999, and the references in Appendices 4.1 and 4.3). Systemic management is defined as the management of human interactions with other systems so as to avoid the abnormal—a definition that emerges from this history.

5.1.1 Management Tenet 1: Including humans—management must be based on an understanding of humans as part of complex biological systems Christensen et al. (1996) stress, as do many others (Appendices 4.1, 4.3), that management must recognize that there is a place for humans in the grand scheme of things. It cannot be emphasized enough that the sustainability of humans as natural elements of ecosystems and the biosphere is an integral part of systemic management. Just as a person with a seven-degree fever is a natural phenomenon, the abnormality of the human species is natural and subject to the natural processes resulting from such pathologies. As parts of systems, we are constrained by the natural laws that govern all species. Our abnormality in comparison to other species subjects us to the same forces that operate homeostatically to bound such variation. Finding a normal, sustainable existence for the human species in its many dimensions, a realistic niche for humans, is a fundamental goal of systemic management. It is a means of finding a realistic way to fit into reality. Systemic management attempts to adjust human impact so we can sustainably coexist with other species, within ecosystems and the biosphere. It aims to increase the likelihood that humans will not be excluded from the Earth’s biota through the homeostatic processes of ecosystems and the biosphere. Systemic management ensures that the needs of humans are accounted for in management, in part, through the identification of needs that are unsustainable. Such management rejects the option of doing things that lead to an abnormal risk of our own extinction, but includes extinction as one of the risks we face as a species. In systemic management, humans, like other species, are considered to directly experience the laws of nature over all scales of time, space, and hierarchical complexity. Human experience is extended to direct empirical observation through which we see all species subject to, and conforming to, these laws. We can use the constructs of models to help understand, see, and measure the manifestations of these laws, but not to fully recreate reality (Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis 2007). No species, including humans, is capable of sufficient control to change or eliminate these laws.

WHY SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT WORKS

We are not making up the rules; we are learning to follow them, or ignoring them to our peril. Humans are faced with a decision: Are we going to change or are we going to let nature make changes for us? If we are going to change, what will it be? Humans create change whether or not decisions are based on systemic guidance. With goals established using information about limits to natural variation, humans shoulder the responsibility both for taking action to achieve such goals and for the consequences of failure to do so. No lawyers represent future generations of humans or other species, and few laws overtly protect them, but if there were such laws, the responsibility of today’s society would be perceived differently. Opposition to change in a sustainable direction and the acceleration of change in the opposite direction are evidence that changes of the magnitude needed are unlikely and nature will take its course. Fortunately humans have the potential for collectively awakening to the imperative for change. This potential is basis for hope without which no change will occur (Fullan 1997). As mentioned in earlier chapters, one aspect of including humans in our concept of complexity has to do with past anthropogenic influence. Not only are we abnormal in many ways now (Fowler and Hobbs 2002, 2003), but we have been for long enough to have set in motion many changes in nonhuman systems, at least some of which are important to account for in what we do now. The ripple effects7 of our influence have long-term consequences, including coevolutionary interactions set in motion by our past and present influence on the systems of which we are a part. Many of these effects are largely irreversible8 and systemic management offers the option of taking all precautionary actions we can to avoid the potential of these changes resulting in abnormal burdens on succeeding generations of humans and other species—including the risk of extinction.9 Although there may be adaptability left at the ecosystem level (i.e., we are not likely to cause the extinction of all species), the opportunity systemic management presents to our species is that of following the lead of other species: adapting to the changes we have set in motion, on top of changes that are independent of our influence. Interconnectedness and complexity (Management

123

Tenets 3 and 4) demand this consideration of humans and systemic management makes it happen. Thus, systemic management makes it possible to account for the effects of current and past human influence. Comparing the population of our species with that of the dozens of other species for which we have approximate estimates of population size can be misleading if we are trying to find what is sustainable in the absence of abnormal human influence (Fig. 5.1, Fowler 2008). Because the sets of species with which we can compare our species currently are parts of ecosystems that we have heavily influenced, they themselves are not necessarily normal. We are accountable for the abnormality we have created and current species-level patterns better account for that abnormality than we find possible in conventional practices.

5.1.2 Management Tenet 2: Limited control— management must recognize that control over other species and ecosystems is impossible Systemic management is explicitly limited to control in the human sphere—human action, influence, and characteristics. It is assumed a priori that, like any form of management, systemic management will have consequences, intended and unintended, over which we have little or no control and which we certainly cannot prevent. Based on the principles of complexity and connectedness (Management Tenet 3), systemic management uses empirical information to guide human action such that the goals and objectives we hold for both human and nonhuman systems may be realized among such consequences. The consequences, feedback, ripple effects and other impacts of our management are accounted for, owing to the fact that such effects are part of what always happens whether the management action is what we do as a species or as individuals.10 Systemic management solves the problem of our tendency to think we can decide what is best for us or other systems based on human concepts, emotions, science, special interests, political agendas, and partial information or knowledge about things not consonant with any specific management question. Our attempts to piece together the

124

SYSTEMIC MANAGEMENT

(A) Past (ten thousand years ago)

Portion of species

(B) 0.4 0.3

Other species

Humans Present

0.2 0.1 0.0 –4.5 –3.5 –2.5 –1.5 –0.5 0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 log population size (millions) Management No control Control

4.5

(C) Future

Figure 5.1 Species frequency distributions of population size for 64 species of mammals of approximately human body size, including humans, compared for a (hypothetical) past (A), a (measured) present (B) and a (potential or hypothetical) future (C) (Fowler 2005, 2008). The curves of A and C represent an approximation of the shape of the range of normal variation expected if humans were within the distribution (e.g., to maximize biodiversity, Fowler 2008), and simultaneously avoid abnormality for other measures (e.g., energy use, resource consumption, etc.). The data and curves of B show a general idea of the shape of the distribution as seen today if more of the endangered species were included. The shift in position and change in shape from (A) to (B) represents a result of the influence of humans, in part owing to the position of humans in this distribution. The potential for change between B and