The Top Ten Abstracts

摘要

Government, scientists, managers, and the public are interested in assessing the health ofecosystems. Initially ecologists concentrated on assessing condition, reproductive success,and survival of a wide range of individual species, but this approach quickly broadened toinclude the health of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes, as well as the humandimension. Monitoring ecosystem health requires the use of a suite of Bioindicators that arebiologically, methodologically, and societally relevant, and can be used effectively overtime to assess trends and provide early warning. Bioindicators can be developed forecosystem health assessment, for human effects and interventions, human health assess-ment, and for evaluating sustainability. Whereas ecologists initially developed indicators tomeasure health or well-being of relatively pristine environments, the usefulness of indica-tors is enhanced if they can assess both ecological and human health, provide trends data,and be used to examine a wide range of stressors, from natural to anthropogenic. A litera-ture review indicated that most ecological indicators have been developed for ecosystemfunction, followed by political, regulatory, cost, and risk assessment considerations. Thereare four main types of indicators, which are not mutually exclusive, including 1) ecosystemhealth assessment, 2) human effects, 3) htunan interventions, and 4) human health and well-being. These indicators can then be used to assess the current health of a species or system,the effects of particular human activities on ecosystems, and the efficacy of management,remediation, and restoration, or just to track trends over time. Bioindicators that encom-pass several categories have the greatest chance of being implemented over the long term.