Ecologists pay too much attention to increasingly rare “pristine” ecosystems while ignoring the overwhelming influence of humans on the environment, say researchers from McGill University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
Prof. Erle Ellis of UMBC and Prof. Navin Ramankutty of McGill assert that the current system of classifying ecosystems into biomes (or “ecological communities”) like tropical rainforests, grasslands and deserts may be misleading. Instead, they propose an entirely new model of human-centered “anthropegenic” biomes in the November 19 issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
It’s a map of where humans are damaging the planet…
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