Acknowledging the city: New methodologies for integrating the human component into long-term ecological research in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study LTER and the Nascent Chilean Itser Network

Background/Question/Methods: The close of 2008 signified a hallmark in the history of humans, a moment when over 50% of the world population finally moved to the city, with 80% of the U.S. population now living in urban areas. This century has encountered an unprecedented loss of biological and cultural diversity worldwide. With the majority of our species living within urban ecosystems, cultures are developing that have unique local ecological knowledge that is not necessarily tied to endemic place or time, but is instead shaped by the automated processes of surrounding technological infrastructure (e.g. transportation infrastructure, industrial agriculture and communications). In order for ecological studies to be able to account for far-reaching anthropogenic impact on ecological processes, and the feedbacks between humans and natural systems, it is necessary to incorporate the human component—including its linguistic and cultural heterogeneity—into ecological principles and landscape design. To achieve such an integration, a fundamental deconstruction of how perception, values and identity are shaped by living in the urban environment must take place on at least two levels: i) the theoretical, such as models that are used to analyze and describe these systems (e.g. the “human ecosystem framework”), and ii) the practical, such as the administrative, educational, operational and technical structures that shapes public perception, habits, research and policies (e.g. conservation and educational standards).
Results/Conclusions: To address this need, new approaches and methodologies are being developed that explore the relationship between human and natural coupled systems in the urban long-term ecological program in Baltimore (BES, LTER), and the nascent international long-term socio-ecological (ILTSER) research network of Chile. The BES LTER studies Baltimore City's ecosystem behavior over time and uses this ecological knowledge to support educational and community activity.  The ILTSER of Chile combines the sciences, environmental philosophy and the arts to aid in overcoming taxonomic bias in educational, conservation and research practices. These two closely related but different schools of thought within the LTER network offer alternatives to current conceptual and physical models, contributing to a fundamental revision of traditional ‘pristine nature studies' that would teach us that the city is not an ecosystem, and that urban infrastructure and processes are static in nature and isolated from the surrounding environment. Such approaches can overcome this deep-rooted notion that humans are separate from nature that expresses itself in various organizational, institutional and educational structures, keeping it so deeply engrained in theory and practice.