Ecosystem Science for the Great Lakes: Perspectives on Degradaiive and Rehabilitative Transformations

Abstract

Conventional approaches to ecological management presuppose the preeminence of normal natural processes in quasi-equilibrium state, in the presence of one or a few cultural stresses of light to moderate intensities. They also presuppose that the abiotic and biotic structural form of the ecosystem is relatively unaffected. In some parts of the Great Lakes, normal natural ecosystem processes have been overwhelmed by numerous intense cultural factors. Rehabilitation of such areas requires information and understanding of a type that is not central to conventional fisheries biology. We review and extend existing scientific approaches that contribute to an effective and relevant "ecosystem science," according to the criteria that they (1) incorporate spatial and structural models appropriate to an ecosystem perspective of the Great lakes basin, (2) incorporate functional attributes actually observed in stressed and culturally degraded aquatic ecosystems, and (3) provide information directly relevant to effective, informal, broadly based mechanisms of ecosystem rehabilitation and husbandry.