COS 95-10 - The evolution of macrosystems biology

Thursday, August 15, 2019: 4:40 PM
L005/009, Kentucky International Convention Center
Elizabeth A. LaRue1, Walter K. Dodds2, Jason R. Rohr3, Kyla Dahlin4, James H. Thorp5, Jeremy S. Johnson6, Brady Hardiman1, Mayra Rodriguez-Gonzalez7, Michael Keller8, Robert Fahey9, Jonathan Knott1, Michael D. SanClements10, Jeffrey Atkins11, Flavia Tromboni12, Geoffrey G. Parker13, Jianguo Liu14 and Songlin Fei1, (1)Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, (2)Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, (3)Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, (4)Geography, Environment, & Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, (5)Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Kansas Biological Survey, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, (6)NAU School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, (7)FNR, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, (8)NRES, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, (9)Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, (10)National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), Battelle, Boulder, CO, (11)Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, (12)Global Water Center, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, (13)Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, (14)Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Background/Question/Methods

In an era of unprecedented human impacts to Earth, macrosystems biology (MSB) was developed to understand ecological patterns, processes, and functions within and across spatial and temporal scales. We used a machine-learning automated content analysis to evaluate the thematic composition of MSB from articles published since the 2010 creation of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s MSB Program.

Results/Conclusions

We found that although MSB articles studied scale and human components in a similar manner when compared to six other ecological sub-disciplines, MSB is emerging as a new research frontier in ecology. Based on a comparison to 84,841 ecological studies, we found that MSB studies have extended the knowledge space of ecology by studying large-scale patterns and processes alongside anthropogenic factors. Therefore, despite having substantial overlap with other ecological sub-disciplines addressing broad scales, MSB is clearly expanding our understanding of ecological processes and human impacts across spatial and temporal scales.