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Resources for Humans, Plants and Animals: Who Is the Ruler of the Driver? And: Can Resource Use Explain Everything?

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Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems

Part of the book series: Environmental Challenges and Solutions ((ECAS))

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Abstract

Resources represent capability, and enable processes such as growth, reproduction, social and cultural life. All processes of life are controlled by resources. Resources are stored in living and dead biomass and in the abiotic environment. Every ecosystem is characterized by input, internal storage, internal cycling, and output of resources.

Resources are used by the species of the ecosystem, including migrating species, humans, and invasive species as they arrive. Humans influence ecosystem functions in various ways, with differential effects on biomass, productivity and species diversity. In most cases this has consequences for species diversity, which is often decreasing, but—depending on the spatial scale—sometimes also increasing.

We ask the question “is it possible to estimate the effects of human exploitation of ecosystems?” Under changing conditions the ecosystem is adapting the resource use permanently by adjusting the combination of its features. Productivity is the driver of recent conditions and biomass is storage; the existence of each is a precondition for the other. Species diversity can increase by immigration and evolution and decrease by emigration and extinction.

Humans as ecosystem engineers are key species with respect to the quantity of resources used and rebound effects on food webs, species diversity and cultural attitudes.

We delineate and discuss the meaning of the Theory on Assembly Optimization (TAO), which we provide here. The sequence: resource existence, resource availability, resource use and optimization of the resource use, represents increasing complexity with a simultaneous decrease in our quantity of empirical evidence and understanding.

We assume that there is a general trend in the resource use by life on earth, which trends toward an optimal or most parsimonious pattern. In accordance with this concept, evolutionary, ecological and sociocultural processes influence the resource use and composition of the communities. Individuals, populations, assemblies and ecosystem properties are always composed and rearranged along changing conditions to an optimal use of resources.

Optimization of the resource use is an important principle controlling ecosystem functions—the ruler. Diversity, productivity and biomass are important drivers of the ecosystem. Changes in these properties reflect changes in the compartmentalisation and resource use of the ecosystem.

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Acknowledgements

This is the preliminary result of a long-lasting discussion with many colleagues. We want to thank Monika Janišová, Alessandro Chiarucci, Marinus Werger, Victor Westhoff (†) and Martin Zobel for criticism, fruitful discussion, remarks on a former version of the manuscript, for recommendations and additional information and ideas.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF), Flensburg, Germany

    Carsten Hobohm

  2. Pronatura Noroeste, Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico

    Sula E. Vanderplank

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Correspondence to Carsten Hobohm .

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  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Education, University of Flensburg (EUF), Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

    Carsten Hobohm

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Hobohm, C., Vanderplank, S.E. (2021). Resources for Humans, Plants and Animals: Who Is the Ruler of the Driver? And: Can Resource Use Explain Everything?. In: Hobohm, C. (eds) Perspectives for Biodiversity and Ecosystems. Environmental Challenges and Solutions. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57710-0_4

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