The Ecological Society of America established a new journal, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, in 2003. Frontiers is intended for a wide audience and includes synthetic articles with particular relevance to environmental issues. “Frontiers Issues to Teach Ecology” is designed to help ecology faculty use selected articles in ecology courses plus do classroom research on their teaching.

ARTICLE:

M Barange. 2003. Ecosystem science and the sustainable management of marine resources: from Rio to Johannesburg. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 4(1): 190-196.

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT:

long-term change, species change, sustainability, fisheries, ecosystems management

TEACHING FOCUS:

Students often have little appreciation of large interannual and longer-term changes in species composition and abundance. Less experienced ecology students may in fact think that such change is “bad.” In ecology texts, species abundance shifts over time (e.g., lynx and hare cycles) are usually discussed in the population ecology chapters. In this article Barange discusses long-term (inter-decadal and longer) patterns of change in marine species in the context of over-exploitation of marine fisheries. Barange’s emphasis is use of ecosystem-based management practice to move us towards sustainable fisheries. However, he questions whether we know enough about patterns and causes of long term change in marine ecosystems to develop such practices.

Authored and edited by Charlene D'Avanzo, School of Natural Sciences, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, 01002
cdavanzo@hampshire.edu