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Past, Present, Future

Past, Present, Future EDITORIAL Steven N. Handel The Past e live in a fractured world. Old biotic patterns and relationships have changed with the growth of human activities and their consequences. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has always accompanied the activities of our populations. Here, in North America, since the first people crossed over from Asia, plant and animal communities and ecosystem processes have been modified, sometimes dramatically, for thousands of years (Krech 1999). More recently, the past few hundred years have shown an escalating rate of change of our living environment (Whitney 1994). Signs of human modifications to ecological structure and function are everywhere around us, from the landscape fragmentation of once continuous habitats (Forman 1995), to the changes in the diversity of species that surround us (Sax et al. 2005), to the more subtle signs of past human uses in the woodlots and farms of our countryside and suburbs (Egan and Howell 2001, Wessels 2010). These changes are accelerating with the rapid growth of the human population, urbanization of these populations throughout the world, and the continuing spread of suburbs around large cities. Other drivers of this change are our frantic travels, now faster, cheaper, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecological Restoration University of Wisconsin Press

Past, Present, Future

Handel, Steven N.
Ecological Restoration , Volume 29 (3) – Aug 13, 2011
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University of Wisconsin Press
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1543-4079
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Abstract

EDITORIAL Steven N. Handel The Past e live in a fractured world. Old biotic patterns and relationships have changed with the growth of human activities and their consequences. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has always accompanied the activities of our populations. Here, in North America, since the first people crossed over from Asia, plant and animal communities and ecosystem processes have been modified, sometimes dramatically, for thousands of years (Krech 1999). More recently, the past few hundred years have shown an escalating rate of change of our living environment (Whitney 1994). Signs of human modifications to ecological structure and function are everywhere around us, from the landscape fragmentation of once continuous habitats (Forman 1995), to the changes in the diversity of species that surround us (Sax et al. 2005), to the more subtle signs of past human uses in the woodlots and farms of our countryside and suburbs (Egan and Howell 2001, Wessels 2010). These changes are accelerating with the rapid growth of the human population, urbanization of these populations throughout the world, and the continuing spread of suburbs around large cities. Other drivers of this change are our frantic travels, now faster, cheaper,

Journal

Ecological Restoration – University of Wisconsin Press

Published: Aug 13, 2011

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