Using grizzly bears as surrogates for "salmon ecosystem" function, the authors develop a generalizable ecosystem-based management framework that enables decision makers to quantify ecosystem-harvest tradeoffs between wild and human recipients of natural resources like fish.

Ecosystem-based approaches for climate change adaptation are promoted at international, national, and local levels by both scholars and practitioners. However, local planning practices that support these approaches are scattered, and measures are neither systematically implemented nor comprehensively reviewed. Against this background, this paper advances the operationalization of ecosystem-base...

Over the past 10 years there has been increasing criticism of management decisions that are based on single-species approaches and a call for the implementation of ecosystem approaches. The major criticism of singlespecies models is that they cannot predict changes in community structure. Unfortunately, our experience in modeling the Bering Sea shows that these same criticisms can also be level...

Nitrogen isotopes (N/N ratios, expressed as dN values) are useful markers of the mycorrhizal role in plant nitrogen supply because discrimination against N during creation of transfer compounds within mycorrhizal fungi decreases the N/N in plants (low dN) and increases the N/N of the fungi (high dN). Analytical models of N distribution would be helpful in interpreting dN patterns in fungi and p...

The term business ecosystem was originally established more than 20 years ago. In the seminal article ''Predators and prey: a new ecology of competition'' [1], Moore proposes an ecological approach to explain the co-evolution of companies within a business ecosystem by adopting a complex interplay of cooperative and competitive strategies. According to Moore, business ecosystems evolve in four ...

Oligochaeta worms are important organisms in aquatic ecosystem. Their omnipresence makes them as an indicator of environmental changes and health of aquatic ecosystem. The members of the family Tubificidae and in particular, genus Limnodrilus are considered as the most tolerant oligochaets to aquatic pollution. Therefore identification and biological characteristics of this taxon are of great h...

In the two decades following the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State, the N2-fixing colonizer Lupinus lepidus is associated with striking heterogeneity in plant community and soil development. We report on differences in nutrient availability and plant tissue chemistry between older, dense patches (core) of L. lepidus and more recently established low density patches (edge). I...

Floristic succession in the boreal forest can have a dramatic influence on ecosystem nutrient cycling. We predicted that a decrease in plant and microbial demand for nitrogen (N) during the transition from midto late-succession forests would induce an increase in the leaching of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), relative to dissolved organic nitrogen (DON). To test this, we examined the chemi...

Amazonian forest fragments and secondgrowth forests often differ substantially from undisturbed forests in their microclimate, plant-species composition, and soil fauna. To determine if these changes could affect litter decomposition, we quantified the mass loss of two contrasting leaf-litter mixtures, in the presence or absence of soil macroinvertebrates, and in three forest habitats. Leaf-lit...

We present a generic software architecture for ecosystem modeling on computing grids. We define and develop standards for software implementation of spatially explicit (landscape-based) ecosystem models. Our strategic goal is to build an extensible software platform that increases interoperability and productivity in ecosystem modeling, and to make it adaptable for grid computing. The Across Tr...