While soil quality encompasses physical and chemical besides biological characteristics, soil health is primarily an ecological characteristic. Ecosystem health has been defined in terms of ecosystem stability and resilience in response to a disturbance or stress. We therefore, suggest that indicators for soil health could be found by monitoring responses of the soil microbial community to the ...

1) Ecosystem indicators are a way of reducing ecosystem complexity into a form that is most informative and useful to management. As a means of turning data into information, indicators are ultimately a communication tool facilitating science-based governance, i.e. the sustainable use of WCPO tuna resources and the conservation of associated species. 2) One framework suggested for the developme...

Despite extensive growth in recent years, the field of "quality-of-life" appraisal still evokes debate about basic perception of the concept and is accompanied by a plethora of indexes for measurement. One prime reason for the problems is that the measurements have been transferred from two separate sources - medical health status indexes and social-science population indexes - neither of which...

This paper introduces a variant of choice experiment valuation designed to ameliorate common limitations related to a lack of ecological clarity in stated preference survey scenarios. This approach, which we call BioindicatorBased Stated Preference Valuation (BSPV), is distinguished by guidelines that inform the structure and use of ecological indicators to define policy scenarios in valuation ...

Assessing the ecological status, a concept implemented in the European Water Framework Directive [EC, 2000. Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council 2000/60/EC establishing a framework for community action in the field of water policy PE-CONS 3639/1/00, p. 72], requires the application of methods capable of distinguishing different levels of ecological quality. The Average Taxono...

Considerable attention has been devoted to environmental assessment and monitoring, primarily by physical and biological scientists, and more recently by social scientists. However, population growth and global change have resulted in an imperative to assess the resiliency of the environment to adapt to large scale changes and to continue to produce goods and services for future generations (su...

Tipping points are crossed when small changes in external conditions cause abrupt unexpected responses in the current state of a system. In the case of ecological communities under stress, the risk of approaching a tipping point is unknown, but its stakes are high. Here, we test recently developed critical slowing-down indicators as early-warning signals for detecting the proximity to a potenti...

Maintaining a healthy ecosystem is essential for maximizing sustainable ecological services of the best quality to human beings. Ecological and conservation research has provided a strong scientific background on identifying ecological health indicators and correspondingly making effective conservation plans. At the same time, ecologists have asserted a strong need for spatially explicit and te...

Ecological indicators, historical land use, and invasive species detection in the lower Iowa River floodplain." MA has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Geography at the May 2014 graduation.