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21 September 1998 |
Ref 98/220 |
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Understanding how Australian ecosystems work, so we can care for them better in future, will be among the greatest challenges in our scientific history, one of the nation's most eminent environmental scientists has warned.
Far from approaching the "end of science" as some researchers claim, we are now at the start of a new and vastly complex field, says Dr Graham Harris, Chief of CSIRO Land & Water.
It was worrying that Australia, as a scientific nation with huge environmental responsibility, lagged behind the world front-runners in coming to grips with this vital new field, Dr Harris told a conference at Adelaide University's Waite Institute today.
"Ecosystems, be they on land, in water or in the soil are some of the most complex entities that we must understand, manage and conserve,"
"Ecosystem destruction and loss of biodiversity is everywhere rife. But what are the design rules and the relationships between different groups of living things in ecosystems? There is a pressing need for prediction, management and restoration. Where do we begin?"
If Australians hope to repair their damaged ecosystems - forests, rivers, grasslands, catchments, estuaries - they must first grasp the basic rules by which ecosystems work.
The challenge is no longer to count individual species, but rather to seek the fundamental laws that govern complex ecological systems, and then apply those laws as part of environmental management and conservation.
"This isn't rocket science - it's a lot more complex," Dr Harris cautions. "To live in the 21st century we need a new science of environmental complexity.
"We need to be able to see and understand the whole forest, not just the individual trees."
Despite the apparent difficulty, however, Dr Harris argues that the basic rules may well prove to be simple - as they are in physics - even if the system they give rise to is very complex.
"We know that what makes an estuary tick, for example, is the interaction between different groups - the algae, plankton, seagrasses, fish, the microbes in the sediment and so on.
"You don't need to know every species that's there in order to understand how the total system works. You need to know how the different groups in it function, and how they interact with the other groups."
Scientist can now survey bays and estuaries by aircraft and satellite for algae, plankton and seagrass - and these things, in turn, reveal much about the overall health of the system and how it will affect the fish or marine mammals that live in it.
In water ecosystems, complex behaviour is often the result of simple causes. Understanding these will help establish the basic rules that govern ecosystems on land such as valleys, forests, wetlands or shrublands, Dr Harris argues.
One common factor driving all ecosystems from the high mountains
and driest deserts to the richest forests and the ocean floor
is microbes, he believes.
"It is the invisible microbial functions in ecosystems that
are most vital to the health of the overall system - yet this
is frequently the least appreciated and understood part of it."
Australia has plenty of ruined landscapes, as well as regions which are still pristine or very close to it. This makes it all the more urgent for us to gain a deeper insight into how these systems work - so we can repair the damaged ones, manage the ones we use better and conserve the pristine ones for future generations.
"Unfortunately, Australian science is not at the cutting edge of world science in this new field, and that worries me.
"It is going to be the life science of the 21st Century,
and we need to start driving it now - for our own sake and for
the continent we inhabit."
More information from:
- Dr Graham Harris, CSIRO Land & Water 08 8303
8701
Ms Margaret Bryant, CSIRO Land & Water 08 9333 6215
(Australia's largest scientific research organisation)
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