Brittany,
The key issue of engineering ecology (or ecosystem engineering) is
whether or not the human agent (engineering) is part of the ecosystem
(both humans and the human habitat). There are basically two schools of
thought: anthropocentrism (the ecosystem is at the service of humans)
and ecocentrism (the service of humans requires that humans take good
care of the ecosystem). The best I have seen on this is "Ecological
Ethics" by Patrick Curry, Polity, 2011.
Luis
Luis T. Gutierrez, PhD PE
The Pelican Web of Solidarity and Sustainability
http://www.pelicanweb.org
[email protected]
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Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2011 10:38:16 -0400
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Brittany_Huntington?= <[email protected]>
Subject: Ecosystem engineers response to biogeography/habitat complexity
--reference help?
Ecologgers:
I am stumped with my literature searches to unearth papers on the
response of ecosystem engineers (richness and abundance) to metrics of
habitat heterogeneity. In particular, I am interested in defining
habitat heterogeneity with regards to spatial landscape metrics of
habitat composition and configuration, and structural complexity.
I realize that by their very definition, ecosystem engineers create and
maintain the complex habitats that other species depend upon. However,
I am interested in references that investigate how important habitat
heterogeneity is to the foundation species themselves?
I work in coral communities myself but am interested in analogous
multi-species assemblages from the terrestrial world of habitat
engineers/foundation species (i.e. forest tree communities; grassland
communities).
Any leads to work assessing the influence of configuration or
composition of habitat patches on foundation species/engineers would be
appreciated!
Thank you,
Brittany
Brittany Huntington
Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
University of Miami
4600 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, FL 33149
