Bradley Cardinale | |
---|---|
Occupation(s) | Ecologist, conservation biologist, academic and researcher |
Academic background | |
Education | B.S., Biology M.S., Fisheries and Wildlife Ph.D., Biology |
Alma mater | Arizona State University Michigan State University University of Maryland |
Doctoral advisor | Margaret A. Palmer |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Ecologist |
Sub-discipline | Conservation biologist |
Bradley Cardinale is an American ecologist,conservation biologist,academic and researcher. He is Head of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management and Penn State University. [1]
Cardinale's work has focused on the conservation and restoration of biodiversity in natural systems,as well as the ecological design of human engineered systems that benefit from biodiversity. [2] He uses mathematical models,lab- and field-based experiments,observational studies of natural ecosystems,and meta-analyses of existing data to examine how human activities impact Earth's biological diversity,and to protect and manage species,their ecosystems,and the services they provide to society. He has written over 120 scientific papers,as well as a textbook on conservation biology. [3]
Cardinale is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, [4] and the Ecological Society of America. [5] In 2014,Cardinale was named by Thomson Reuters as one of The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. [6]
Cardinale was born in Phoenix,Arizona in 1969. He studied at Arizona State University where,in 1993,he received a B.S. in Biology. [7]
After receiving his bachelor's degree,Cardinale went on to receive an M.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife in 1996 from Michigan State University where he helped develop methods for restoring coastal wetlands in the Great Lakes. He then went on to complete a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Maryland in 2002 where he led projects focused on the restoration of biodiversity and ecosystem processes in degraded streams in the Appalachian Mountains. Following his Ph.D.,Cardinale completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. [8]
In 2005,Cardinale joined the Department of Ecology,Evolution,and Marine Biology at the University of California,Santa Barbara as an Assistant Professor,becoming Associate Professor in 2010. In 2011,he left the University of California,Santa Barbara to join the University of Michigan,where he became a Full Professor in 2015. He served as coordinator of the Conservation Ecology Program at the University of Michigan from 2012 to 2014. [9] He left the University of Michigan in 2021 to join Penn State University as Head of the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management. [1]
In 2013,he was elected by the U.S. National Academy of Science as one of three U.S. representatives on the inaugural Science Committee of the United Nations initiative Future Earth. Future Earth was a reorganization of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) that merged five discipline-based global change programs into a single,multidisciplinary research program. [10]
Between 2009 and 2013,Cardinale helped form the U.S. National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON),assisting with selection of the core aquatic sites,and serving on the Pacific-Southwest Domain Science Committee. He was also co-PI with Walter Dodds and Margaret A. Palmer on the proposal that established the Stream Observational and Experimental Network (STREON) –a coordinated set of national climate change experiments that were ultimately eliminated from NEON as part of budget cuts and descoping. [11]
Cardinale received the Hynes Award for New Investigators from the Society for Freshwater Science in 2003. [12] He also received the Burton V. Barnes Award from the Sierra Club in 2015 for his leadership in organizing academic scientists at 13 state-universities in Michigan to speak out against anti-biodiversity legislation that was intended to make state lands more accessible to fracking,lumbering,and mining. That effort ultimately led to the legislation being vetoed by Michigan's governor. [13]
In 2016,Cardinale was appointed as the Director of Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR). CIGLR is one of 16 Cooperative Institutes across the U.S. that are funded by NOAA to link government research labs to university partners,non-governmental organizations,and private business partners who help them accomplish their research and development goals. [14]
Cardinale's research focuses on the conservation and restoration of biodiversity,as well as the use of ecological design to improve human engineered ecosystems. Most of his work has focused on the management of biodiversity in freshwater habitats (streams,lakes,wetlands),though he has worked in ecosystems as diverse as grasslands,forests,and kelp beds. [15]
Work from the Cardinale Lab has received extensive recognition in the popular media,leading to numerous interviews on U.S. National Public Radio (NPR), [16] and coverage in Reuters, [17] the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC), [18] and the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC). [19]
A significant part of Cardinale's research has focused on developing a key argument for biodiversity conservation,which is that biodiversity is the foundation for a healthy planet. His work has shown that loss of biodiversity impacts important ecological processes that are essential to the productivity and stability of ecosystems,as well as the goods and services they provide to humans. [20]
Cardinale and his colleagues have developed a suite of mathematical models to describe how the biological traits of species,interactions among species,and the structure of entire food webs influence essential processes like primary production,decomposition,and nutrient cycling. [21] [22] He has tested the predictions of these models in both field and lab-based experiments,primarily using freshwater organisms as model systems. His experiments were among the first to show that biodiversity enhances the efficiency and productivity of ecosystems through niche partitioning among species, [23] and via facilitative interactions that cause diverse communities to be greater than the sum-of-their-parts. [24] These mechanisms had long-been presumed to operate in nature,but empirical evidence was lacking.
Cardinale is perhaps best known for his leadership in organizing major data syntheses that have helped foster a consensus about the probable consequences of biodiversity loss for humanity. He has organized numerous working groups funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation,the United Nations Environmental Program,the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis,and the Socio-Economic Environmental Synthesis Center. [25] [26] In these working groups,Cardinale and his colleagues have assembled extensive datasets of thousands of experiments [27] and observational studies [28] [29] that have quantified how changes in biodiversity impact a wide variety of ecological processes and ecosystem services for organisms inhabiting 30 biomes on 5 continents. Their syntheses have led to publication of 15 formal meta-analyses.
In 2012,Cardinale organized and led an invited review for a special issue of Nature dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit in which his colleagues and he synthesized over 1,700 papers that have examined biodiversity's impact on 34 ecosystem goods and services. This synthesis revealed a remarkable level of generality in how biodiversity impacts the functioning of Earth's ecosystems and the services they provide to society. [30]
Cardinale has also conducted considerable research on the restoration of ecosystems and their biodiversity. During his early graduate studies,Cardinale worked on restoration of Great Lakes coastal wetlands in Lake Huron that had been drained for agriculture. [31] He showed that,once hydrologic connectivity is re-established,the vegetation of drained wetlands could be restored from existing seed banks that had survived nearly a hundred years of farming in agricultural soils. He also showed that certain forms of stocking and augmentation could help re-establish natural invertebrate communities that form the base of the wetland food webs. [32]
Later in his graduate studies,Cardinale turned attention towards stream restoration where he experimentally tested common techniques that are used to restore streams in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. His work helped determine which techniques statistically enhance the recovery of biodiversity and important ecological processes,and which techniques have the highest success rates for restoration. [33]
In the early 2010s,Cardinale worked on collaborative projects with biologists and geomorphologists to evaluate the success of gravel augmentation in restoring spawning habitat for endangered Chinook salmon. Working in a restored section of the Merced River in central California,he and his students demonstrated that gravel augmentation does,in fact,enhance spawning habitat for Chinook. [34] [35] But the practice also leads to abnormally mobile streambeds that can damage salmonid eggs,reduce the abundance and alter the composition of food items,and change feeding rates,survival and growth of native fish,including juvenile salmon that hatch from spawning beds. [36] [37]
In 2017,Cardinale established the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR),which brings together academic institutions with government agencies and private businesses who work together on achieving sustainable use of the Great Lakes. [38] With funding from NOAA and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative,CIGLR and its 40+ scientific staff have worked on restoring Great Lakes Areas of Concern,restoration of coastal fish habitat,management of invasive species,and remediation of coastal zones impacted by harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. [39]
A final portion of Cardinale's research program lies at the intersection of ecology and engineering where he has used principles of ecological design to improve the efficiency and sustainability of human engineered ecosystems. He has completed a number of experiments and published several key papers showing that the composition of species in biological communities can be manipulated to maximize removal of pollutants from freshwater. In 2011,he published a paper in Nature showing that streams managed to maximize biodiversity of algae are more efficient at removing nutrient pollutants like nitrates from the water than less diverse systems. [40] Soon after,he extended this work to consider emerging contaminants,and showed that certain combinations of species could be manipulated to maximize removal of titanium-dioxide nanoparticles from stream water. [41]
Cardinale has also examined how biological communities can be engineered to maximize erosion control,and minimize the loss of sediments from stream bottoms and riverbanks. He and his research group have shown that enhancing plant diversity of native vegetation along streambanks creates complex rooting systems that help reduce the chance of bank sloughing and failure. [42] [43] In addition,they have shown that small insects that live on the bottom of streams can bind rocks together as they spin nets to construct their homes,and these nets significantly reduce the probability of streambed erosion during floods. [44] [45]
Since 2013,Cardinale has been studying how ecological design might be used to improve the efficiency and sustainability of algal biofuel systems. [46] He and his lab group have shown that certain combinations of species can maximize the production of algal feedstocks,and that species combinations can be developed such that they are complimentary in their recycling of expensive fertilizers that are used to cultivate algae in outdoor ponds. [47] Further,he has shown that nesting complimentary species within more diverse communities of algae can help alleviate problems associated with pathogens,parasites,and predators that often cause feedstocks to crash. [48]
Ecology is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual,population,community,ecosystem,and biosphere levels. Ecology overlaps with the closely related sciences of biogeography,evolutionary biology,genetics,ethology,and natural history.
Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water,resulting in an increased growth of microorganisms that may deplete the oxygen of water. Eutrophication may occur naturally or as a result of human actions. Manmade,or cultural,eutrophication occurs when sewage,industrial wastewater,fertilizer runoff,and other nutrient sources are released into the environment. Such nutrient pollution usually causes algal blooms and bacterial growth,resulting in the depletion of dissolved oxygen in water and causing substantial environmental degradation.
A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water,either permanently,for years or decades,or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor (anoxic) processes taking place,especially in the soils. Wetlands form a transitional zone between waterbodies and dry lands,and are different from other terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems due to their vegetation's roots having adapted to oxygen-poor waterlogged soils. They are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems,serving as habitats to a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals,with often improved water quality due to plant removal of excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphorus.
Habitat conservation is a management practice that seeks to conserve,protect and restore habitats and prevent species extinction,fragmentation or reduction in range. It is a priority of many groups that cannot be easily characterized in terms of any one ideology.
Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems. They include lakes,ponds,rivers,streams,springs,bogs,and wetlands. They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems,which have a larger salt content. Freshwater habitats can be classified by different factors,including temperature,light penetration,nutrients,and vegetation. There are three basic types of freshwater ecosystems:Lentic,lotic and wetlands. Freshwater ecosystems contain 41% of the world's known fish species.
The diversity of species and genes in ecological communities affects the functioning of these communities. These ecological effects of biodiversity in turn are affected by both climate change through enhanced greenhouse gases,aerosols and loss of land cover,and biological diversity,causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and extinctions of species and local populations. The current rate of extinction is sometimes considered a mass extinction,with current species extinction rates on the order of 100 to 1000 times as high as in the past.
Ecological engineering uses ecology and engineering to predict,design,construct or restore,and manage ecosystems that integrate "human society with its natural environment for the benefit of both".
Ecological restoration,or ecosystem restoration,is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded,damaged,destroyed or transformed. It is distinct from conservation in that it attempts to retroactively repair already damaged ecosystems rather than take preventative measures. Ecological restoration can reverse biodiversity loss,combat climate change,support the provision of ecosystem services and support local economies. The United Nations has named 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water,in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems may be lentic;lotic;and wetlands.
Hydrobiology is the science of life and life processes in water. Much of modern hydrobiology can be viewed as a sub-discipline of ecology but the sphere of hydrobiology includes taxonomy,economic and industrial biology,morphology,and physiology. The one distinguishing aspect is that all fields relate to aquatic organisms. Most work is related to limnology and can be divided into lotic system ecology and lentic system ecology.
Functional ecology is a branch of ecology that focuses on the roles,or functions,that species play in the community or ecosystem in which they occur. In this approach,physiological,anatomical,and life history characteristics of the species are emphasized. The term "function" is used to emphasize certain physiological processes rather than discrete properties,describe an organism's role in a trophic system,or illustrate the effects of natural selective processes on an organism. This sub-discipline of ecology represents the crossroads between ecological patterns and the processes and mechanisms that underlie them.
River ecosystems are flowing waters that drain the landscape,and include the biotic (living) interactions amongst plants,animals and micro-organisms,as well as abiotic (nonliving) physical and chemical interactions of its many parts. River ecosystems are part of larger watershed networks or catchments,where smaller headwater streams drain into mid-size streams,which progressively drain into larger river networks. The major zones in river ecosystems are determined by the river bed's gradient or by the velocity of the current. Faster moving turbulent water typically contains greater concentrations of dissolved oxygen,which supports greater biodiversity than the slow-moving water of pools. These distinctions form the basis for the division of rivers into upland and lowland rivers.
A pond is a small,still,land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression,either naturally or artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing the two,although defining a pond to be less than 5 hectares in area,less than 5 metres (16 ft) in depth and with less than 30% of its area covered by emergent vegetation helps in distinguishing the ecology of ponds from those of lakes and wetlands. Ponds can be created by a wide variety of natural processes,or they can simply be isolated depressions filled by runoff,groundwater,or precipitation,or all three of these. They can be further divided into four zones:vegetation zone,open water,bottom mud and surface film. The size and depth of ponds often varies greatly with the time of year;many ponds are produced by spring flooding from rivers. Ponds are usually freshwater but may be brackish in nature. Saltwater pools,with a direct connection to the sea to maintain full salinity,may sometimes be called 'ponds' but these are normally regarded as part of the marine environment. They do not support fresh or brackish water-based organisms,and are rather tidal pools or lagoons.
Brackish marshes develop from salt marshes where a significant freshwater influx dilutes the seawater to brackish levels of salinity. This commonly happens upstream from salt marshes by estuaries of coastal rivers or near the mouths of coastal rivers with heavy freshwater discharges in the conditions of low tidal ranges.
William Mitsch is an ecosystem ecologist and ecological engineer who was co-laureate of the 2004 Stockholm Water Prize in August 2004 as a result of a career in wetland ecology and restoration,ecological engineering,and ecological modelling.
In ecology,the term productivity refers to the rate of generation of biomass in an ecosystem,usually expressed in units of mass per volume per unit of time,such as grams per square metre per day. The unit of mass can relate to dry matter or to the mass of generated carbon. The productivity of autotrophs,such as plants,is called primary productivity,while the productivity of heterotrophs,such as animals,is called secondary productivity.
Margaret A. Palmer is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland and director of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). Palmer works on the restoration of streams and rivers,and is co-author of the book Foundations of Restoration Ecology. Palmer has been an invited speaker in numerous and diverse settings including regional and international forums,science-diplomacy venues,and popular outlets such as The Colbert Report.
Erika S. Zavaleta is an American professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California,Santa Cruz. Zavaleta is recognized for her research focusing on topics including plant community ecology,conservation practices for terrestrial ecosystems,and impacts of community dynamics on ecosystem functions.
Shahid Naeem is an ecologist and conservation biologist and is a Lenfest Distinguished professor and chair in the Department of Ecology,Evolution,and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. Naeem is the author of Biodiversity,Ecosystem Functioning,and Human Well-Being,and has published over 100 scientific articles.
Ecohydraulics is an interdisciplinary science studying the hydrodynamic factors that affect the survival and reproduction of aquatic organisms and the activities of aquatic organisms that affect hydraulics and water quality. Considerations include habitat maintenance or development,habitat-flow interactions,and organism responses. Ecohydraulics assesses the magnitude and timing of flows necessary to maintain a river ecosystem and provides tools to characterize the relation between flow discharge,flow field,and the availability of habitat within a river ecosystem. Based on this relation and insights into the hydraulic conditions optimal for different species or communities,ecohydraulics-modeling predicts how hydraulic conditions in a river change,under different development scenarios,the aquatic habitat of species or ecological communities. Similar considerations also apply to coastal,lake,and marine eco-systems.