In Mediterranean Spain and Italy, the forest sector contributes little to the national economy and employment, whereas in Canada the forest industry is a principal employer, providing the economic foundation for many rural communities ( Natural Resources Canada 2012). These focal forests differ in species diversity, structure, disturbance regimes, histories, and contributions to local economies. 1) to show how CSS can unify the study of global forests and provide new insights into their management.
In this paper, we review eight attributes of four well-studied forest biomes: temperate, boreal, tropical and Mediterranean ( Fig. 2013) maintain that CSS can contribute to holistic management approaches for enhancing the adaptive capacity of forests, and ecosystems in general, and their resilience to global changes. 2007) and some foresters ( Puettmann et al. Ecologists ( Levin 1999, Gunderson and Holling 2002, Liu et al. 2002), evolution of land-use ( White and Engelen 1993), and meteorology ( Peters and Neelin 2006). 2010), social-ecological system management ( Walker et al. CSS applications are also found in conservation biogeography ( Cumming et al. 2002), ecological indicators ( Parrott 2010), and detecting ecosystem regime shifts ( Scheffer et al. 2005), the structure of interspecific networks ( Dunne et al. Important advances have been achieved in understanding and modeling population fluctuations ( Inchausti and Halley 2002), spatial dynamics ( Blasius et al. In other areas of ecology, contributions of CSS are many and varied ( Anand et al. A unified understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of complex systems has emerged over the past 20 years here we review how CSS can be applied to forest ecology and management.Īlthough forests are prime examples of complex systems ( Perry 1994), CSS is rarely invoked in forest ecology or forestry. Irrespective of the nature of their constituents, complex systems share the properties of heterogeneity, hierarchy, self-organization, openness, adaptation, memory, non-linearity, and uncertainty ( Solé and Goodwin 2000, Boccara 2004, Mitchell 2009). Underpinning these broad applications is the idea that locally interacting entities produce global dynamics that cannot readily be predicted from their individual behaviors ( Newman 2011). 2003) to economics ( Haldane and May 2011). With roots in non-linear physics and information theory, CSS has applications in systems of all scales, sizes, and functions, from epidemiology ( Ferguson et al.
#The system lens how to
We show how this approach can help forest scientists and managers to conceptualize forests as integrated social-ecological systems and provide concrete examples of how to manage forests as complex adaptive systems.Ĭomplex systems science (CSS) provides a transdisciplinary framework to study a variety of biological, social, and physical systems ( Mitchell 2009). These biomes share the main properties of complex systems but differ in specific ecological properties, disturbance regimes, and human uses. The lens of complex systems science yields insights into facets of forest structure and dynamics that facilitate comparisons among ecosystems. We review the properties of complex systems using four well-studied forest biomes (temperate, boreal, tropical and Mediterranean) as examples. Complex systems thinking has inspired both theory and applied strategies for improving ecosystem resilience and adaptability, but applications in forest ecology and management are just beginning to emerge. Complex systems science provides a transdisciplinary framework to study systems characterized by (1) heterogeneity, (2) hierarchy, (3) self-organization, (4) openness, (5) adaptation, (6) memory, (7) non-linearity, and (8) uncertainty.
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