Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere

Abstract

Human populations and their use of land have transformed most of the terrestrial biosphere into anthropogenic biomes (anthromes), causing a variety of novel ecological patterns and processes to emerge. To assess whether human populations and their use of land have directly altered the terrestrial biosphere sufficiently to indicate that the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Human alteration of the terrestrial biosphere has been significant for more than 8000 years. However, only in the past century has the majority of the terrestrial biosphere been transformed into intensively used anthromes with predominantly novel anthropogenic ecological processes. At present, even were human populations to decline substantially or use of land become far more efficient, the current global extent, duration, type and intensity of human transformation of ecosystems have already irreversibly altered the terrestrial biosphere at levels sufficient to leave an unambiguous geological record differing substantially from that of the Holocene or any prior epoch. It remains to be seen whether the anthropogenic biosphere will be sustained and continue to evolve.

Fighting carbon loss of degraded peatlands by jump-starting ecosystem functioning with ecological restoration

“…However, only the sites with N and P analyzed both from ditch and peat strip at each site were included in the ANOVA and subsequent pairwise tests. Reprinted with kind permission of Wiley © Almost everywhere around the globe, human land use has caused extensive degradation of natural landscapes accompanied with extinctions of species and loss of ecosystem services to an extent that it already poses a threat to the longterm sustainability of humanity itself (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005;Rockström et al 2009;Ellis 2011;. This has caused ecological restoration to be raised to a major strategy for reversing the biodiversity losses and increasing the provision of ecosystem services Halme et al 2013;Wortley et al 2013).…”

When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal

“…The 'early Anthropocene' hypothesis marks the beginning of significant modification of the landscape (Ellis, 2011), and the progressive conversion of humanity from largely hunting/ gathering communities to settled agricultural and cattle-raising life, from which sprang the first urban centres. These human communities locally left an abundant archaeological record (e.g.…”

The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time?

“…Ellis [21] considers the transformation of much of the terrestrial biosphere into anthropogenic biomes, or anthromes. He analyses the scale of this transformation by comparing the extent of change through different time slices of the Holocene.…”