Ecological research is certainly entering a new era of integration and collaboration, building on a firm base of advancements in our ecological knowledge achieved in recent years, as we meet the challenge of understanding the great complexity of biological systems. Ecological sub-disciplines are rapidly combining and incorporating other biological, physical, mathematical, and sociological disciplines. The burgeoning base of theoretical and empirical work, made possible by new methods, technologies, and funding opportunities, is providing the opportunity to reach robust answers to major ecological questions. The United States National Science Foundation (1999) convened a white paper committee to evaluate what we know and do not know about important ecological processes, what hurdles currently hamper our progress, and what intellectual and conceptual interfaces need to be encouraged. The committee distilled the discussion into four frontiers in research on the ecological structure of the earth's biological diversity and the ways in which ecological processes continuously shape that structure. Environmental scientists are also increasingly concemed not only with explaining the present, but with anticipating the future. An understanding of the past isvital to both concerns. Paleo-ecology is playing an increasingly prominent role in environmental forecasting. As an example, paleo-fire records could be used to test the mechanistic models required for the prediction of future variations in fire. This paper highlights the discussions of those frontiers and explains why they are crucial to our understanding.
展开▼
