The Test of Time
Using Historical Methods to Assess Models of Ecological Change on California's Hardwood Rangelands
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4774510 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tim Paulson (0000-0003-4889-1554, University of British Columbia), Keith C Brown (0000-0003-4453-0938), Peter S Alagona (0000-0002-1030-0029) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 111 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 402-421 |
| Publication date | 2021-02-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annals of the American Association of Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2469-4452 • E-ISSN: 2469-4460 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/24694452.2020.1782168 |
| OpenAlex | W3046390974 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 74 |
Geographers and environmental scientists use conceptual models to understand ecological processes and support management decisions. Most of these models are based on short-term experiments and field observations, which might not account for longer term forces that shape ecosystems over decades to centuries. How can scholars use historical sources and methods to improve conceptual models of ecological change? In this article, we present the results of a study that employed methods from environmental history and historical geography to assess three conceptual models that researchers have used to study ecological changes on California’s hardwood rangelands: the succession and climax, state and transition, and cyclical replacement models. The succession and climax model fared poorly at all spatial scales. The historical record contained substantial evidence to support the predictions of the state and transition model at the small spatial scale of the plot or field (0.1–100 ha) and the very large spatial scale of the hardwood rangeland bioregion (4 million ha). The cyclical replacement model performed well at the intermediate scale of the landscape or typical cattle ranch (100–10,000 ha). Historical data and methods hold considerable untapped potential for assessing, building on, and improving conceptual models of ecological change in geography and the environmental sciences
Biodiversity · Bioregion · Cartography · Climate change · Climax · Climax community · Conceptual model · Ecological succession · Environmental change · Environmental resource management · Geography · Historical ecology · Landscape ecology · Rangeland · Temporal scales · Computer Science · Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies · Environmental Science · Forest Management and Policy · Rangeland and Wildlife Management · Ecology
Plant succession; an analysis of the development of vegetation
The Arid Lands
The Land Scape of History
Grazing Systems, Ecosystem Responses, and Global Change
From Balance of Nature to Hierarchical Patch Dynamics
Opportunistic Management for Rangelands Not at Equilibrium
Thresholds and breakpoints in ecosystems with a multiplicity of stable states
From Metaphor to Measurement
Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems
Locational analysis in human geography
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
The Research Act
The Politics of Scale
Homes on the Range
Reflections on the American environment
History of Rangeland Management in California
Livestock, Land Cover, and Environmental History
Vegetation Change Along the Arizona-Sonora Boundary∗
Pasture Conversion, Private Ranchers, and the Invasive Exotic Buffelgrass ( Pennisetum ciliare ) in Mexico's Sonoran Desert
Culture and climate
Intervention
Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Social Research in Human Geography-An Impossible Mixture
Whose landscape? A political ecology of the 'exurban' Sierra
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |