Quotes About Ecosystems

Although biodiversity loss continues globally, many countries are significantly slowing the rate of loss by shoring up protected natural areas and the services they provide, and in expanding national park systems with tighter management and more secure funding.

There is a canyon within a reasonable distance of nearly every school in the city," [Elaine Brooks] pointed out. What an exciting prospect, she said - a network of natural libraries for teaching children about the region's rare and fragile ecosystems - and about themselves.

Given that 80 percent plus of the U.S. population lives in cities and suburbs, the connection with nature is fading to the detriment of all living creatures.

I specialized in transitional environments, and this particular location transitioned several times, meaning that it was home to a complexity of ecosystems.

If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.

Sure, Google's and Apple's ecosystems look a little different, but they are meant to do pretty much the same thing. For the two companies, innovation on mobile essentially means catching up to the other's growing list of features.

Ecosystems function locally, not globally. Local extinction, the disappearance of a species within, say, the woodlot down the street, or even your front yard, is now predicted to compromise the productivity of that woodlot and your yard.

To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, you can create multifunctional residential landscapes using all-natives some of the time, and some natives all of the time, but you cannot meet all landscaping goals using all natives all of time.

You are not what you think you are. Instead of the form staring back at you when you look in the mirror, what you should imagine is your body as a collection of multiple dynamic ecosystems made up of very tiny, and very biologically diverse, organisms.

It is folly to think that we can destroy one species and ecosystem after another and not affect humanity. When we save species, we're actually saving ourselves.

According to Princeton's Andrew Dobson, "Climate change is disrupting natural ecosystems in a way that is making life better for infectious diseases.

Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.

One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks.

Water is the basis of life and the blue arteries of the earth! Everything in the non-marine environment depends on freshwater to survive.

I could walk into a wooded area and pinpoint within a foot any body he'd left there. I noticed this because my area of expertise was modeling how different systems stake out and create their own ecosystems. I use the term system because sometimes it's a confluence of organisms working together—in their own interests—yet yielding a mutual benefit. The shape of a thing isn't always the thing.

Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.

Even in our deep ocean, there are ecosystems at work with no light whatsoever down in the deepest portions of the oceanic abyss.

Architects have to become designers of eco-systems. Not just designers of beautiful facades or beautiful sculptures, but systems of economy and ecology, where we channel the flow not only of people, but also the flow of resources through our cities and buildings.

Ultimately we need to recognize that while humans continue to build urban landscapes, we share these spaces with others species.

We have the capacity to create a remarkably different economy: one that can restore ecosystems and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation, prosperity, meaningful work, and true security.

All of us humans have myriad other species to thank. Without them, we couldn't exist. It's that simple, and we can't afford to ignore them, anymore than I can afford to neglect my precious wife--nor the sweet mother Earth that births and holds us all. Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.

Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways: Either we decide to manage our own numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on civilization's graph - or nature will do it for us, in the form of famines, thirst, climate chaos, crashing ecosystems, opportunistic disease, and wars over dwindling resources that finally cut us down to size.

The most successful of biology's creatures coexist in mutually beneficial ecosystems.

I have come to see that mental states are also ecosystems. These sometimes friendly and at times hazardous terrains are natural environments embedded in the greater system of our character.