Key Laboratory of Marine Environment and Ecology (OceanUniversity of China), Ministry of Education of China, Qingdao, China.
PLoS One. 2013 Jul 23;8(7):e70547. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070547. Print 2013.
Marine ecosystem is a complex nonlinear system. However, ecosystem health assessment conventionally builds on a linear superposition of changes in ecosystem components and probably fails to evaluate nonlinear interactions among various components. To better reflect the intrinsic interactions and their impacts on ecosystem health, an ecosystem coordination index, defined as the matching level of ecosystem structure/services, is proposed and incorporated into the ecosystem health index for a systematic diagnosis in the Pearl River Estuary, China. The analysis results show that the ecosystem health index over the last three decades decreased from 0.91 to 0.50, indicating deteriorating from healthy to unhealthy status. The health index is 3-16% lower than that calculated using the common method without considering ecosystem coordination. Ecosystem health degradation in the Pearl River Estuary manifested as significant decreases in structure/services and somewhat mismatching among them. Overall, the introduction of coordination in ecosystem health assessment could improve the understanding of the mechanism of marine ecosystem change and facilitate effective restoration of ecosystem health.
海洋生态系统是一个复杂的非线性系统。然而，传统的生态系统健康评估是基于生态系统组成部分变化的线性叠加，可能无法评估各种组成部分之间的非线性相互作用。为了更好地反映内在相互作用及其对生态系统健康的影响，提出了一个生态系统协调指数，定义为生态系统结构/服务的匹配水平，并将其纳入中国珠江口的生态系统健康指数中进行系统诊断。分析结果表明，过去三十年的生态系统健康指数从 0.91 下降到 0.50，表明生态系统健康状况从健康恶化到不健康。与不考虑生态系统协调的常用方法相比，健康指数低 3-16%。珠江口生态系统健康的退化表现为结构/服务的显著下降，以及它们之间的某些不匹配。总的来说，在生态系统健康评估中引入协调可以提高对海洋生态系统变化机制的理解，并有助于有效恢复生态系统健康。
