OOS 13
New Perspectives for Ecology during the Anthropocene: New Paradigms, Technologies and Collaborations

Tuesday, August 11, 2015: 8:00 AM-11:30 AM
310, Baltimore Convention Center
Organizer:
Alejandro Ordonez, Aarhus University
Co-organizer:
Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus University
Moderator:
Alejandro Ordonez, Aarhus University
We are living in the Anthropocene, an era where human activities have strong influences on Earth systems, and where anthropogenic biomes, fragmented landscapes, and the use of nature to provide services and good for humans is increasingly the norm. The human population continues to increase, as do associated factors such as anthropogenic climate change and globalized dispersal of organisms. As a result we are now sailing into uncharted territory, where most terrestrial and aquatic systems are simultaneously embedded within a human-dominated landscape, and are being shaped directly or indirectly by human activities. The session focuses on providing a synthetic overview of how Anthropocene dynamics are imposing unintentional re-design of nature, generating new human-environment-species associations and driving the ongoing worldwide extinction crisis. For this we have put together a series of talks focusing on Evaluating, monitoring and Managing, the effects of human activities on ecological systems. These talks focus on two main topics. First, the use of new technologies, interdisciplinary perspectives, and unplanned global biodiversity experiments as ways both to measure ecological changes in the Anthropocene and rethink ecological research strategies to understand the dynamics of novel, globally connected, and continuously changing ecosystems. Second, the importance of framing policy and community engagement with the Anthropocene in mind and how ecological research should focus on understanding how anthropogenic ecosystems are formed, operate, and are expected to change under the current rates of biotic homogenization and major changes in land-use and climate.
8:00 AM
 Predicted and unpredictable responses of plant communities to human disturbance revealed with long-term data
Jenny L. McCune, University of Guelph; Mark Vellend, Université de Sherbrooke
8:20 AM
 Ecosystem services in the context of Anthropocene
Laura López-Hoffman, The University of Arizona; Aaron M. Lien, The University of Arizona
8:40 AM
 Modeling qualitative social data: Collaborative approaches for and continuing challenges to crossing the qualitative-quantitative divide
Jack R. Friedman, University of Oklahoma; Duncan Wilson, Oklahoma State University; Jennifer Koch, University of Oklahoma
9:00 AM
 Spatial refugia, invasion, and climate change: Species conservation in the Anthropocene
Lauren M. Hallett, University of California, Berkeley; Emily C. Farrer, UC Berkeley; Katharine N. Suding, University of California at Berkeley; Richard J. Hobbs, The University of Western Australia
9:20 AM
 Conservation planning in the Anthropocene: Reconciling biodiversity needs with philanthropic constraints
Eric R. Larson, Shedd Aquarium; Stephen Howell, The Nature Conservancy; Peter Kareiva, The Nature Conservancy; Paul R. Armsworth, University of Tennessee
9:40 AM
10:30 AM
 Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere: New tools for Anthropocene ecologists
Erle Ellis, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
10:50 AM
 Mesocarnivore dynamics in a highly fragmented, yet highly permeable urban landscape
Mason A. Fidino, Lincoln Park Zoo; Joseph L. Simonis, Lincoln Park Zoo; Seth B. Magle, Lincoln Park Zoo
11:10 AM
 Rethinking ecology for the Anthropocene
Jens-Christian Svenning, Aarhus University