Global ecology
These measurements demonstrated
Within the conventions of ecology qua ecology, the
notion of global ecology is almost an oxymoron. Tra-
ditional ecologists tend to regard ecology as “The
study of the controls over the distribution and abun-
dance of organisms”. According to this criterion,
the locus of ecology occurs at a single scale, that
of the organism, and research emphasizes organ-
ism–environment and organism–organism interac-
tions. Most of the classic questions of both autecology
and synecology focus on this scale. Questions regard-
ing the survivorship and growth of individuals in
different environments, behavioral ecology, popula-
tion dynamics, predation, and competition, as well as
some more modern topics such as symbioses, occur
at this single spatial scale.
Global ecology began with Joseph Priestley’s
experiments in the eighteenth century demonstrating
that plants, in effect, purified air and thus allowed
animals to survive. These results provided the first
hard evidence that the activities of some organisms
had impacts on the functioning of other organisms at
spatial scales greater than that of the individual. More
recently, Redfield [1] demonstrated in the middle of
the last century that the structure and behavior of
marine organisms played a major role in determining
the chemistry of the oceans. In the last 25 years,
global ecology has expanded to include a wide range
of organismal activities that affect continental and
larger spatial scales [2].
Perhaps the highest profile topic of global ecology
currently being investigated concerns the exchange
of carbon dioxide between the biosphere and the
atmosphere (see Climate change, cryosphere, and
atmospheric chemistry). At the end of the nine-
teenth century, Svante Arrhenius [3] noted the role
of carbon dioxide in maintaining the thermal bal-
ance of the Earth’s surface. Beginning with the
International Geophysical Year in 1958, C.D. Keel-
ing [4] started to measure the average concentra-
tion of CO2 in the lower atmosphere by making
repeated measurements at a remote site in Hawaii (see
http: // cdiac.eds.ornl.gov /trends /co2/
Based in part on the article “Global ecology” by
Manuel Lerdau, which appeared in the Encyclopedia
of Environmetrics.
Encyclopedia of Environmetrics, Online © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This article is © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This article was published in Encyclopedia of Environmetrics Second Edition in 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9780470057339.vag020.pub2
sio-mlo.htm/).
two crucial facts. The first, and most famous, was
that average atmospheric CO2 concentrations were
rising exponentially. Later work on gas concentra-
tions in ice cores showed that the beginning of this
increase coincided with the start of the Industrial Rev-
olution. Keeling’s measurements also demonstrated
that the seasons in the northern hemisphere affected
the intra-annual changes in CO2 concentration. Dur-
ing the northern hemisphere’s spring and summer,
CO2 concentrations dropped, while during the win-
ter they rose. This initial observation spawned entire
new research programs (as well as journals) dedicated
to investigating the role of the biosphere in regu-
lating atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Out of this
interest has come an increased awareness that the
details of microbial and plant physiology, once the
province only of physiologists, are essential also
for ecological research. Current efforts now examine
both the impacts of biological activity on the atmo-
sphere and the effects of CO2 concentration on plant
growth, community dynamics, and ecosystem pro-
cesses. Global ecological research on CO2 exchange
now considers such classical topics as competition,
predation, and symbioses because these processes
both respond to and influence CO2 concentration.
In addition to CO2 exchange, global ecologists
examine the role of the biosphere in regulating
the exchanges of other gases, such as oxygen and
water, that have important functions in both the
chemical and radiative balance of the atmosphere.
Ecological (and geological) research has demon-
strated that the consumption of CO2 during respi-
ration almost perfectly balances the production of
O2 by photosynthesis. Only during periods of high
organic matter burial (e.g., the Carboniferous era)
does O2 production outstrip respiration and allow
O2 to accumulate. Over most of the Earth’s land
surface, water flux from plants during transpiration
provides much of the rainfall for that land. Massive
changes in the surface features, for example, large-
scale deforestation, can permanently change rainfall
and thus vegetation patterns. For example, defor-
estation of the Tibetan plateau by the Chinese led
to a decline in transpiration (as more water was
lost to runoff), which caused a decrease in rainfall,
which made it impossible for trees to re-establish
(see Soil erosion and conservation). The Tibetan
plateau now has all the characteristics of a temper-
ate grassland and will probably never again become
2 Global ecology
a forest without massive human or climatological
changes.
Ecologists also attend to other features of Earth’s
atmosphere that are determined by biological activ-
ity. Some of the most prominent of these activities
are the biosynthesis and emission of methane and
other reduced hydrocarbons that are greenhouse gases
and photochemical reductants. Most methane comes
from anaerobic respiration in wetlands that is under
tight biological regulation. Interestingly, the possi-
bility for significant feedbacks between the atmo-
sphere and these wetlands exists because as climate
warms (methane is an important greenhouse gas),
the wetlands will dry, increasing the ratio of aerobic
to anaerobic respiration and decreasing the methane
flux. These declines in methane flux will lead to a
decreased greenhouse impact of methane. However,
the increase in CO2 flux from these systems will,
to a certain extent, radiatively balance the decreased
methane emissions. Plants also produce a wide range
of volatile hydrocarbons, ranging from ethane to
15 carbon sesquiterpenes. These hydrocarbons are
less important as greenhouse gases because they are
so chemically reactive that they rarely accumulate
enough in the atmosphere to absorb substantial quan-
tities of infrared radiation. They do, however, act to
reduce oxidized compounds such as the hydroxyl rad-
ical and nitric oxide. These plant-emitted hydrocar-
bons are the main players in maintaining the reduced
side of the lower atmosphere’s redox balance. Soil
microbes also produce oxides of nitrogen such as
nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas) and nitric oxide
(a photochemical oxidant) that are under ecological
control.
An emerging topic in global ecology has been
the repeated expression across the Earth’s surface of
phenomena that act at local to regional scales. For
example, nitrogen deposition onto terrestrial ecosys-
tems is altering these systems and, when the nitrogen
passes through soils into vadose water, aquatic sys-
tems as well [5]. Most nitrogen that enters terrestrial
systems comes either through the direct application
of fertilizers or the deposition of oxidized nitrogen
that is produced during fossil fuel combustion. While
these issues are local to regional in that nitrogen is
not well mixed in the atmosphere, they are occurring
across such a large swath of the Earth’s surface that
Encyclopedia of Environmetrics, Online © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This article is © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This article was published in Encyclopedia of Environmetrics Second Edition in 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9780470057339.vag020.pub2
they can be considered global, and the interaction of
these nitrogen effects with elevated carbon dioxide
create a true global nitrogen ecology.
In addition to the far-from-complete list of terres-
trial processes described above, aquatic ecosystems
(see Benthic ecology; Pelagic ecology Water bod-
ies) are vital in the global exchange of matter and
energy. CO2 fixation by phytoplankton and accumu-
lation of carbon in tests of marine invertebrates are
two of the principal mechanisms by which CO2 is
sequestered from the atmosphere. Grazing by zoo-
plankton similarly releases CO2 that can, in turn,
return to the atmosphere. The burial of organic mate-
rial in sediments is currently the only significant
process by which organic matter is removed from the
photosynthesis/respiration cycle and net oxygen pro-
duction achieved. As research moves into the twenty-
first century, more and more efforts will be made
to link these globally significant ecological processes
with the classic questions of ecology such as compe-
tition and predation (see Species competition). Over
the next few years, it will become increasingly likely
that all ecologists, whether studying local questions
regarding the distribution and abundance of organ-
isms in grasslands, deserts, forests, or oceans, will
think globally.
References
[1] Redfield, A.C. (1957). Interaction of Sea and Atmo-
sphere: A Group of Contributions, American Meteorolog-
ical Society, Boston.
[2] Mooney, H.A. (1999). On the road to global ecology,
Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 24, 1–31.
[3] Arrhenius, S. (1896). On the influence of carbonic acid in
the air upon the temperature on the ground, Philosophical
Magazine and Journal of Science 41, 237–272.
[4] Keeling, C.D. (1960). The concentration and isotopic
abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Tellus
12, 200–203.
[5] Vitousek, P.M., Hattenschwiler, S., Olander, L., & Alli-
son, S. (2002). Nitrogen and nature, Ambio 31, 97–101.
(See also Global environmental change; Global
warming; Climatology)
MANUEL LERDAU