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Ommisions potentially useful for reference and perspective

Posted by kdarwish on 09 May 2013 at 12:45 GMT

Very important and timely study, but perhaps a wider readership (incl. environmentalists, land management workers, innovators, other stakeholders and decision-makers) might have benefited significantly from reference to:
"Scientific Foundations for an IUCN Red List of Ecosystems" by Keith et al. published in same issue of PLOS ONE,
any counts versus Minimum viable population (MVP) for elk and wolf species studied, just for reference to impact, although it is understood this study focused on applying SEM to "considering direct and indirect effects of humans on multi-species interactions and ecosystem dynamics",
the "Spine of the Continent" project, and possibly the book of the same name by Mary Ellen Hannibal, for many that would and should acquaint themselves with such ambitious applications of information and knowledge provided by this study.

No competing interests declared.

RE: Ommisions potentially useful for reference and perspective

mmusiani replied to kdarwish on 22 May 2013 at 21:04 GMT

Thank you for your great comments, kdarwish!

IF INTERESTED, listen to the audio from:
http://people.ucalgary.ca...
It's an interview about our project with Voice of America, Science World.

In a nutshell, I have the following QUESTIONS TO ECOLOGISTS, MANAGERS AND ALSO OTHER INDIVIDUALS (as for your comment):
-Will accepting the role of humans as ecosystem engineers overshadow the bottom-up vs. top-down debate?
-Should we focus our efforts on people, rather than plants/animals? ( We painstakingly monitored wolves, elk, cattle and plant species, as well as humans for five years. We evaluated how these species interacted across the landscape and ultimately found that humans dominated the ecosystem)

Marco, on of the authors

No competing interests declared.