New international, interdisciplinary, open access
journal launched by the Ecological Societies of America and China
Ecosystem Health and Sustainability showcases
applications of ecological science in support of
sustainable development during an era of
extensive and accelerating human and environmental change.
Today, the Ecological Society of America (ESA)
and the Ecological Society of China (ESC) jointly
launch a new open access scholarly research
journal to foster communication of applied
ecological research across national and disciplinary boundaries.
<http://esa.org/ehs/>Ecosystem Health and
Sustainability (EHS, ISSN: 2332-8878) features
international collaborations, interdisciplinary
research, and multi-scale projects.
The new journal emphasizes research applying
ecological science to decision-making in support
of sustainable development at local, national,
and international scales, said Dr. Shirong Liu,
president of the Ecological Society of China.
The journal encourages integration of natural,
social, and behavioral studies and seeks research
with implications for strategic planning and governance.
EHS is the first ecological journal published
cooperatively by two scientific societies
headquartered in different countries, said Dr.
David Inouye, president of the Ecological Society
of America. But it was created to publish
research on ecosystem health and sustainable
development from scientists all over the world,
not just China and the United States.
A committee of ESA and ESC representatives
selected Dr. Yonglong Lu, a distinguished
professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as
EHS Editor-in-Chief for his solid grounding
within the ecological research communities of
both societies home countries. Dr. Lu has
recruited 80 editorial and advisory board members
from 27 countries. The journal is honored to
embrace editors from Africa, Asia (including
India and Russia), Europe, Oceania, and the Americas.
The editors particularly look for submissions
from scientists working in parts of the world
experiencing rapid economic development and rapid
environmental change, said President Liu.
Editor-in-Chief Lu said fostering publication of
research from developing and newly
industrializing economies is vital. The new
journal is an opportunity to build a truly global ecological resource.
I am honored to take on this new role joining
the efforts of the two societies, and would like
to work together with peer scientists on getting
the new journal recognized internationally.
<http://esa.org/ehs/>Ecosystem Health and
Sustainability will open a platform for
international cooperative research on ecology and
sustainability science and promote communication
between the scientists in developed and
developing countries about applications of
ecological science for sustainable development.
This is very much needed, said Dr. Lu.
The journal is published in English. It is open
access and digital only, based on the model of
ESAs rapid-publication journal Ecosphere, which
launched in 2010 and was recently indexed in Web of Science.
We would like the new journal to become a home
for data from big, multinational collaborations,
including ongoing long-term research projects and
interim results from broad-scale ecological
assessments, said President Inyoue, who has
worked on many international efforts, such as a
pollinator assessment currently under review for
the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
EHS receives rigorous copy-editing from the
production team that handles ESAs traditional
journals Ecology, Ecological Monographs, and
Ecological Applications. The new joint journal
expands the on scope of ESAs existing journal
family to further embrace big data and the rise
of ecological research on a global scale,
encouraging participation from parts of the world
that have been underrepresented in the scientific literature.
There is great science coming from regions of
rapid development, but much of it is published in
local journals that are not widely read or
accessible, said Katherine McCarter, executive
director of ESA and publisher of EHS. With so
many ecological issues emerging around the world,
we need more opportunities for quality research to be broadly distributed.
Contents of the inaugural issue of Ecosystem
Health and Sustainability, March 2015:
A new platform for ecologists to link ecology with policy. (editorial)
* Yonglong Lu, Editor-in-Chief, Ecosystem Health and Sustainability
* David W. Inouye, President, Ecological Society of America
* Shirong Liu, President, Ecological Society of China
Global methane and nitrous oxide emissions from
terrestrial ecosystems due to multiple
environmental changes. (research report)
* Hanqin Tian, International Center for
Climate and Global Change Research, School of
Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.
* Telephone: 334-844-1059; <mailto:tian...@auburn.edu>tian...@auburn.edu
* Co-authors: Guangsheng Chen, Chaoqun Lu,
Xiaofeng Xu, Wei Ren, Bowen Zhang, Kamaljit
Banger, Bo Tao, Shufen Pan, Mingliang Liu, Chi
Zhang, Lori Bruhwiler, and Steven Wofsy
Methane and nitrous oxide are potent greenhouse
gases and important considerations for climate
change mitigation strategies. But global and
regional budgets of these gases are uncertain
because direct emissions measurement is
difficult. Emissions can be highly variable over
small areas and short time spans, causing
sampling to be misleading without using an
unreasonably large number of samples. Carbon
dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide influence the
production and consumption of each other within
natural systems in complex and dynamic ways.
Hanqin Tian and colleagues applied a model based
on ecological theory to existing datasets from
the last three decades to estimate global methane
and nitrous oxide emissions simultaneously. They
used the model to explore patterns of influence
from the combined effects of multiple
environmental factors. Nitrogen fertilizer use,
atmospheric carbon dioxide, ozone pollution, soil
properties, climate conditions, land use, and
vegetation cover can affect emissions. Simulated
emissions increased in most climatic zones and
continents during 19812010, but the fastest
increases occurred in tropical regions,
particularly in natural wetlands and rice fields.
Ecosystem health towards sustainability. (review)
* Yonglong Lu, State Key Laboratory of Urban
and Regional Ecology, Research Center for
Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
* Telephone: 0086-10-62915537; <mailto:y...@rcees.ac.cn>y...@rcees.ac.cn
* Co-authors: Ruoshi Wang, Hongqiao Su, Pei
Wang, Alan Jenkins, Rober C. Ferrier, Mark Bailey, Geoff Squire
What is a healthy ecosystem? Health and
dysfunction are qualitative perceptions of
ecosystems, defined by the symptoms or indicators
chosen to describe and monitor the systems.
Definitions of ecosystem health reflect social
needs and goals and, unavoidably, include value
judgments. Ecologists and managers point to
evidence of stable structure and function over
time, even in the face of sudden external
stresses, as key signifiers of ecosystem health.
Though the concept of ecosystem health is not
entirely objective, it can be useful for
environmental management. To identify
quantifiable indicators of ecosystem health, Lu
and colleagues review methods and models for
measuring ecosystem health and sustainability,
offering criteria for selecting indicators
appropriate to different types of ecosystems.
Global urbanization as a shifting context for
applying ecological science toward the sustainable city. (review)
* Steward T.A. Pickett, Cary Institute of
Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook NY, USA;
<mailto:picke...@caryinstitute.org>picke...@caryinstitute.org
* Weiqi Zhou, State Key Laboratory for Urban
and Regional Ecology, Research Center for
Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, Beijing, China; <mailto:wz...@rcees.ac.cn>wz...@rcees.ac.cn
Cites are part of the natural world. The centers
of commerce delineated by tall buildings,
electric light, and concrete transport corridors
are also habitatsdynamic and interconnected
ecosystems. Ecologically informed urban design
has the potential to guide the development of
sustainable cities. But conceptual models of
urban ecosystems must encompass global patterns
of urban growth in the 21st century. Human
migrations between fast-growing urban
agglomerations and agricultural villages blur
boundaries of city, suburb, exurb, countryside,
and wilderness. In rapidly industrializing
nations, mosaics of rural agriculture, high-rise
buildings, gated communities, and informal
shantytowns are appearing that do not necessarily
follow patterns of industrialization in
Australia, Europe, Japan, or North America.
Picket and Zhou summarize and propose a synthesis
of the complementary concepts of the urban
megaregion and the continuum of urbanity into
a comprehensive and inclusive framework that
applies urban ecological science with sustainable urban transformations.
Climate change, Risky Business, and a Call to
Action for Ecologists. (policy forum)
* Jerry Melillo, The Ecosystems Center,
Marine Biological Laboratory, <mailto:jmeli...@mbl.edu>jmeli...@mbl.edu
In October 2013, the Risky Business Project,
co-chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg, Henry
Paulson, and Tom Steyer, commissioned an
assessment of the economic risks posed by climate
change. The
<http://riskybusiness.org/reports/national-report/executive-summary>report
produced by these prominent financial leaders
pointed out the potential for serious damage to
the U.S. economy if steps toward mitigation and
adaptation are not taken. It also painted a
picture of hope for our capacity to manage
climate risk. Ecologist Jerry Melillo sees this
report from the business sector as a call to
action. Ecologists, he says, need to get involved
by bringing the ecological dimension of climate
change into the economic conversation.
###
The Ecological Society of China (ESC) was
established in 1979 and has approximately 9,000
members, consisting of scientists and people with
an interest in ecology. ESC has twenty academic
committees and five working committees. Its
headquarters are located in Beijing, China. The
current president of ESC is Dr. Shirong Liu and
the general secretary is Dr. Liding Chen. In
addition to publishing three journals in Chinese,
two journals in English, and a members bulletin,
the ESC provides services to the academic
community, promotes academic communication, and
provides professional training and consultation
services to government agencies to assist
decision-making on ecological restoration,
environmental protection, and ecosystem
management. Visit the ESC website at
<http://english.rcees.cas.cn/sp/zgstxxh/>http://english.rcees.cas.cn/sp/zgstxxh/
The Ecological Society of America (ESA), founded
in 1915, is the worlds largest community of
professional ecologists and a trusted source of
ecological knowledge, committed to advancing the
understanding of life on Earth. The 10,000 member
Society publishes
six<http://www.esajournals.org/>journalsand a
bulletin and broadly shares ecological
information through policy, media outreach, and
education initiatives. The Societys
<http://esa.org/baltimore/>Annual Meeting
attracts 4,000 attendees and features the most
recent advances in ecological science. Visit the
ESA website at <http://www.esa.org/>http://www.esa.org.
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