Have ‘Ecosystem Engineering’ Approaches Improved Earth Science Education?
Have biotic modifications of physical habitat features, including soils and inland water bodies, been under-estimated, such that important ecosystem impacts of biota (plants, animals, and microörganisms) have been under-reported, especially in educational contexts? Recent research and literature use “ecosystem engineering” analysis [i.e., “how organisms physically change the abiotic environment and how this feeds back to the biota”, quoting Hastings et al., Ecology Letters, 10:153-164 (2007)], for interpreting ecosystem dynamics, mostly improving upon keystone species models, yet more research and terminology refinement is needed, to better understand and explain biotic-abiotic dynamics in diverse habitats, with special attention to limnogeology, biogeochemical networks, phenology, and biome ecology. Ecosystem-modifying mechanisms are classified as ‘allogenic’ (physically changing abiotic environments or other organisms, e.g., beavers, pollinators, seed dispersers) or ‘autogenic’ (organism physically changing themselves to impact habitats, e.g., wind-flow/sunlight-altering trees, coral reefs). Topics include soil aeration, pH, drainage, biogeochemistry (earthworms; ants; moles, woodchucks, prairie dogs, bats); sunlight access (filter-feeding bivalves); nurse logs (seedlings); bioturbation (sedimentary worms, walrus, salmon, ghost shrimp); mound construction (termites); dam/lodge construction (beavers, muskrats); forest canopy change (elephants, cervids); nest construction (birds, squirrels), with attention to how some built-in environmental tracking systems actively guide organisms to physically alter ecosystems they inhabit.
Monday, 1 January 1753
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