Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology, geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, zoology, epidemiology, public health, and home economics, among others.
Crawford Stanley "Buzz" Holling, was a Canadian ecologist, and Emeritus Eminent Scholar and Professor in Ecological Sciences at the University of Florida. Holling was one of the conceptual founders of ecological economics.
Regime shifts are large, abrupt, persistent changes in the structure and function of ecosystems, the climate, financial systems or other complex systems. A regime is a characteristic behaviour of a system which is maintained by mutually reinforced processes or feedbacks. Regimes are considered persistent relative to the time period over which the shift occurs. The change of regimes, or the shift, usually occurs when a smooth change in an internal process (feedback) or a single disturbance triggers a completely different system behavior. Although such non-linear changes have been widely studied in different disciplines ranging from atoms to climate dynamics, regime shifts have gained importance in ecology because they can substantially affect the flow of ecosystem services that societies rely upon, such as provision of food, clean water or climate regulation. Moreover, regime shift occurrence is expected to increase as human influence on the planet increases – the Anthropocene – including current trends on human induced climate change and biodiversity loss. When regime shifts are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, they may also be referred to as critical transitions.
Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.
Health ecology is an emerging field that studies the impact of ecosystems on human health. It examines alterations in the biological, physical, social, and economic environments to understand how these changes affect mental and physical human health. Health ecology focuses on a transdisciplinary approach to understanding all the factors which influence an individual's physiological, social, and emotional well-being.
Robert Costanza is an American/Australian ecological economist and Professor at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a Full Member of the Club of Rome.
Biology Letters is a peer-reviewed, biological, scientific journal published by the Royal Society. It focuses on the rapid publication of short high quality research articles, reviews and opinion pieces across the biological sciences. Biology Letters has an average turnaround time of twenty four days from submission to a first decision.
Adaptive capacity relates to the capacity of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences. In the context of ecosystems, adaptive capacity is determined by genetic diversity of species, biodiversity of particular ecosystems in specific landscapes or biome regions. In the context of coupled socio-ecological social systems, adaptive capacity is commonly associated with the following characteristics: Firstly, the ability of institutions and networks to learn, and store knowledge and experience. Secondly, the creative flexibility in decision making, transitioning and problem solving. And thirdly, the existence of power structures that are responsive and consider the needs of all stakeholders.
In its broadest sense, social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability to multiple stressors and shocks, including abuse, social exclusion and natural hazards. Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values.
In ecology, resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to respond to a perturbation or disturbance by resisting damage and recovering quickly. Such perturbations and disturbances can include stochastic events such as fires, flooding, windstorms, insect population explosions, and human activities such as deforestation, fracking of the ground for oil extraction, pesticide sprayed in soil, and the introduction of exotic plant or animal species. Disturbances of sufficient magnitude or duration can profoundly affect an ecosystem and may force an ecosystem to reach a threshold beyond which a different regime of processes and structures predominates. When such thresholds are associated with a critical or bifurcation point, these regime shifts may also be referred to as critical transitions.
Brian Harrison Walker is a scientist specialized in ecological sustainability and resilience in socio-ecological systems.
In ecology, the theory of alternative stable states predicts that ecosystems can exist under multiple "states". These alternative states are non-transitory and therefore considered stable over ecologically-relevant timescales. Ecosystems may transition from one stable state to another, in what is known as a state shift, when perturbed. Due to ecological feedbacks, ecosystems display resistance to state shifts and therefore tend to remain in one state unless perturbations are large enough. Multiple states may persist under equal environmental conditions, a phenomenon known as hysteresis. Alternative stable state theory suggests that discrete states are separated by ecological thresholds, in contrast to ecosystems which change smoothly and continuously along an environmental gradient.
A social-ecological system consists of 'a bio-geo-physical' unit and its associated social actors and institutions. Social-ecological systems are complex and adaptive and delimited by spatial or functional boundaries surrounding particular ecosystems and their context problems.
Carl Folke, is a trans-disciplinary environmental scientist and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is a specialist in economics, resilience, and social-ecological systems, viewing such systems as intertwined and potentially unexpected in their interactions. As a framework for resource management, this perspective brings important insights to environmental management, urban planning, and climate adaptation. He suggests ways to improve our ability to understand complex social-ecological interactions, deal with change, and build resilience, often working at smaller scales as a step towards addressing larger scales.
This is a bibliography of ecology.
In the fields of engineering and construction, resilience is the ability to absorb or avoid damage without suffering complete failure and is an objective of design, maintenance and restoration for buildings and infrastructure, as well as communities. A more comprehensive definition is that it is the ability to respond, absorb, and adapt to, as well as recover in a disruptive event. A resilient structure/system/community is expected to be able to resist to an extreme event with minimal damages and functionality disruptions during the event; after the event, it should be able to rapidly recovery its functionality similar to or even better than the pre-event level.
The Journal of Industrial Ecology is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering industrial ecology. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Yale School of the Environment and is an official journal of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. The editor-in-chief is Reid Lifset. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal had an impact factor of 6.946 in 2020.
Terence P. Hughes is a professor of marine biology at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. He is known for research on the global coral bleaching event caused by climate change. Nature dubbed him "Reef sentinel" in 2016 for the global role he plays in applying multi-disciplinary science to securing reef sustainability. He is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. His research interests encompass coral reef ecology, macroecology and evolution, as well as social-ecological interactions. His recent work has focused on marine ecology, macroecology, climate change, identifying safe planetary boundaries for human development, and on transformative governance of the sea in Australia, Chile, China, the Galapagos Islands, Gulf of Maine and the Coral Triangle. His career citations in Google Scholar exceed 88,000.
Beatrice Crona is an ecologist, a professor at Stockholm University, and the Executive Director of the Program on Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2023 she became a Science Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Supply chain resilience is "the capacity of a supply chain to persist, adapt, or transform in the face of change".
