What

  Ecoinformatics and the Ecology of Global Change

  Who

 Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Denmark

  When

  9:00-10:30a.m. May 31, 2012

  Where

  Room 2321, IGSNRR

  Host:

  Prof. LU Feng

Brief to the report

Earth’s ecosystems sustain not just biodiversity, but also human society. At the same time, the increasing human population and its resource use are causing planetary-scale changes in the Earth system via land transformation, direct biodiversity losses and introductions, effects on biogeochemistry, and climate change (global change).

This global change has feedback effects on human society via impacts on ecosystem services. It is therefore a key challenge for modern science to provide a predictive understanding of global change and its impacts on Earth’s ecology. Such complex large-scale problems cannot be adequately addressed solely by classical experimental approaches. Instead creative ecoinformatics approaches are needed, integrating ecology, statistics, mathematics, and informatics. Ecoinformatics refers to the computing approach to ecology, relying on the rapid developments in information technology and associated technologies, notably in remote sensing, resulting in massive increases in computing power and data availability.

Examples are given on how ecoinformatics are providing new insights into the ecology of global change, by mapping global change dynamics, providing insights into drivers of current global ecology and global change dynamics, impacts of past global change, and the potential impacts of future global change as well as possibilities for mitigation and adaptation.

  From

  State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System