Resources for Humans, Plants and Animals:
Who Is the Ruler of the Driver? And: Can
Resource Use Explain Everything?
Carsten Hobohm and Sula E. Vanderplank
Abstract Resources represent capability, and enable processes such as growth,
reproduction, social and cultural life. All processes of life are controlled by
resources. Resources are stored in living and dead biomass and in the abiotic
environment. Every ecosystem is characterized by input, internal storage, internal
cycling, and output of resources.
Resources are used by the species of the ecosystem, including migrating species,
humans, and invasive species as they arrive. Humans influence ecosystem functions
in various ways, with differential effects on biomass, productivity and species
diversity. In most cases this has consequences for species diversity, which is often
decreasing, but—depending on the spatial scale—sometimes also increasing.
We ask the question “is it possible to estimate the effects of human exploitation of
ecosystems?” Under changing conditions the ecosystem is adapting the resource use
permanently by adjusting the combination of its features. Productivity is the driver of
recent conditions and biomass is storage; the existence of each is a precondition for
the other. Species diversity can increase by immigration and evolution and decrease
by emigration and extinction.
Humans as ecosystem engineers are key species with respect to the quantity of
resources used and rebound effects on food webs, species diversity and cultural
attitudes.
We delineate and discuss the meaning of the Theory on Assembly Optimization
(TAO), which we provide here. The sequence: resource existence, resource availability, resource use and optimization of the resource use, represents increasing
complexity with a simultaneous decrease in our quantity of empirical evidence and
understanding.
C. Hobohm (*)
Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF),
Flensburg, Germany
e-mail: hobohm@uni-flensburg.de
S. E. Vanderplank
Pronatura Noroeste, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Hobohm (ed.), Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Environmental
Challenges and Solutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57710-0_4
79
Who Is the Ruler of the Driver? And: Can
Resource Use Explain Everything?
Carsten Hobohm and Sula E. Vanderplank
Abstract Resources represent capability, and enable processes such as growth,
reproduction, social and cultural life. All processes of life are controlled by
resources. Resources are stored in living and dead biomass and in the abiotic
environment. Every ecosystem is characterized by input, internal storage, internal
cycling, and output of resources.
Resources are used by the species of the ecosystem, including migrating species,
humans, and invasive species as they arrive. Humans influence ecosystem functions
in various ways, with differential effects on biomass, productivity and species
diversity. In most cases this has consequences for species diversity, which is often
decreasing, but—depending on the spatial scale—sometimes also increasing.
We ask the question “is it possible to estimate the effects of human exploitation of
ecosystems?” Under changing conditions the ecosystem is adapting the resource use
permanently by adjusting the combination of its features. Productivity is the driver of
recent conditions and biomass is storage; the existence of each is a precondition for
the other. Species diversity can increase by immigration and evolution and decrease
by emigration and extinction.
Humans as ecosystem engineers are key species with respect to the quantity of
resources used and rebound effects on food webs, species diversity and cultural
attitudes.
We delineate and discuss the meaning of the Theory on Assembly Optimization
(TAO), which we provide here. The sequence: resource existence, resource availability, resource use and optimization of the resource use, represents increasing
complexity with a simultaneous decrease in our quantity of empirical evidence and
understanding.
C. Hobohm (*)
Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF),
Flensburg, Germany
e-mail: hobohm@uni-flensburg.de
S. E. Vanderplank
Pronatura Noroeste, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Hobohm (ed.), Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Environmental
Challenges and Solutions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57710-0_4
79