title: Historical foundations and future directions in macrosystems ecology.
abstract: Macrosystems ecology is an effort to understand ecological processes and interactions at the broadest spatial scales and has potential to help solve globally important social and ecological challenges. It is important to understand the intellectual legacies underpinning macrosystems ecology: How the subdiscipline fits within, builds upon, differs from and extends previous theories. We trace the rise of macrosystems ecology with respect to preceding theories and present a new hypothesis that integrates the multiple components of macrosystems theory. The spatio-temporal anthropogenic rescaling (STAR) hypothesis suggests that human activities are altering the scales of ecological processes, resulting in interactions at novel space-time scale combinations that are diverse and predictable. We articulate four predictions about how human actions are "expanding", "shrinking", "speeding up" and "slowing down" ecological processes and interactions, and thereby generating new scaling relationships for ecological patterns and processes. We provide examples of these rescaling processes and describe ecological consequences across terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Rescaling depends in part on characteristics including connectivity, stability and heterogeneity. Our STAR hypothesis challenges traditional assumptions about how the spatial and temporal scales of processes and interactions operate in different types of ecosystems and provides a lens through which to understand macrosystem-scale environmental change.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12309, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Rose A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Graves
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Winslow D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA.
authors.forename: Brian J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Jiangxiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiu
authors.affiliation: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Carly
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ziter
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Monica G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Turner
mesh_terms: D004463:Ecology / Q000266:history* / Q000639:trends*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans
keywords: Hierarchy theory; landscape ecology; macrosystems ecology; space-time; spatio-temporal