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The interaction of ecology and the study and application of environmental ethics can be facilitated by understanding the status of the fundamental background assumptions of the science. The classical paradigm of ecology, now superseded, focused on organisms and framed the science in a primarily equilibrium perspective. Steady state, homeostasis, and stability were hallmarks of ecological systems under this worldview. With the benefit of hindsight, the specific assumptions of the equilibrium paradigm are seen to be that (1) ecological systems are materially closed; (2) they are self-regulating; (3) an equilibrium state exists for each system; (4) disturbance is rare or negligible; (5) recovery from any disturbance that does occur is deterministic, and leads to the expected equilibrium state; and (6) humans are external to ecological systems and are a negative force. As the organismal viewpoint gave way to more inclusive theories, such as the ecosystem and landscape ecology, and data sets extended for longer periods of time, it became clear that the equilibrium assumptions did not always hold. The shift in worldview occasioned by new data as well as by conceptual flexibility, can be summarized by a new inclusive or non-equilibrium paradigm. It accepts (1) the material openness of ecological systems; (2) the role of external regulation; (3) the absence or transience of equilibrium states; (4) the commonness and significance of natural and human-caused disturbances; (5) the multiple pathways of system dynamics, and (6) the pervasive involvement of human actors, both local and distant, in ecosystems. Ecological concepts engage technical definitions, technical models, and metaphorical implications that are relevant to their connections with ethics.

We are entering a new urban era in which the ecology of the planet as a whole is increasingly influenced by human activities (Ellis 2011; Steffen et al. 2011a, b; Folke et al. 2011). Cities have become a central nexus of the relationship between people and nature, both as crucial centres of demand of ecosystem services, and as sources of environmental impacts. Approximately 60 % of the urban land present in 2030 is forecast to be built in the period 2000–2030 (Chap. 21). Urbanization therefore presents challenges but also opportunities. In the next two to three decades, we have unprecedented chances to vastly improve global sustainability through designing systems for increased resource efficiency, as well as through exploring how cities can be responsible stewards of biodiversity and ecosystem services, both within and beyond city boundaries.

While protection may alleviate some concerns within protected areas, should protection also be expected to mitigate the likelihood of invasion by alien species? Plant community dynamics may be thought of as generated by three broad classes of drivers: site availability and history, species availability and species performance. As all plant communities are dynamic and plant invasions may be involved in these dynamics, this framework may be useful in exploring the role of protection in invasion. In reviewing examples of individual drivers of plant community dynamics, the potential for mechanisms that lie outside local control to lead to invasion is found to be great. This suggests that alien plant invasions should be expected in most landscapes, even those with some level of protection. Linkages with management practices are also highlighted.

A major purpose of this book is to lay out the constraints, opportunities, benefits, and pathways for improving the linkage between the science of ecology and the theory and practice of environmental ethics. The six chapters in this part together suggest a shared message.

I. Integrating philosophy and ecology: Biocultural interfaces Chapter 1.0. Introduction. Ricardo Rozzi Chapter 1.1. Biocultural Ethics. Ricardo Rozzi Chapter 1.2. Introduced Species, Homogenizing Biotas and Cultures. Daniel Simberloff Chapter 1.3. Traditional Knowledge and Wisdom: A Guide for Understanding and Shaping Alaskan Social-Ecological Change. F. Stuart Chapin, III, Patricia Cochran, H. Huntington, Corrine N. Knapp, Todd J. Brinkman & Lily R. Gadamus Chapter 1.4. Traditional Ecological Values, Knowledge, and Practices in Twenty-First Century Hawai'i. Peter Vitousek and Kamanamaikalani Beamer Chapter 1.5. Tradition as Benefit or Barrier? The Case of Us Christian Religion in the Formation of Environmental Ethics. Susan Power Bratton Chapter 1.6. Environment Imagination Situation. Irene J. Klaver II. Ecological worldviews: aesthetic, metaphors, and conservation Chapter 2.0. Introduction. J. Baird Callicott Chapter 2.1. The Worldview Concept and Aldo Leopold's Project of "World View" Remediation. J. Baird Callicott Chapter 2.2. The Link between Aesthetic Appreciation and the Preservation Imperative. Sheila Lintott and Allen Carlson Chapter 2.3. The Metaphorical Links between Ecology, Ethics, and Society. Brendon M. H. Larson Chapter 2.4. Science as Sacred Myth? Ecospirituality in the Anthropocene Age. Lisa H. Sideris Chapter 2.5. Rachel Carson's Environmental Ethics. Philip Cafaro Chapter 2.6. Aldo Leopold from Sciences to Ethics and Policy. Curt Meine III. Environmental Philosophy: ethics, epistemology, justice Chapter 3.0. Introduction. Clare Palmer Chapter 3.1. Contested Frameworks in Environmental Ethics. Clare Palmer Chapter 3.2. Legacies of Positivism in the Philosophy of Science. Helen Longino Chapter 3.3. Ecological Objects for Environmental Ethics. Christopher H. Eliot Chapter 3.4. Ecology, Ethics and Global Justice. Tim Hayward Chapter 3.5. Whose Danger, Which Climate? Mesopotamian versus Liberal Accounts of Climate Justice. Michael S. Northcott Chapter 3.6. Environmental Justice, Ecofeminism and Power. Chaone Mallory IV. Ecosystems: science, values, and action Chapter 4.0. Introduction. Steward Pickett Chapter 4.1. Paradigms in and of Ecology. Steward Pickett Chapter 4.2. Hierarchy Theory: An Overview. Jianguo Wu Chapter 4.3. Ecosystem Services: Is a Planet Servicing One Species Likely to Function? Shahid Naeem Chapter 4.4. Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World: Values, Philosophy, and Action Environmental Justice and Power. Stephanie Pincetl Chapter 4.5. Not Such Strange Bedfellows: Underserved Public Audiences as Collaborators for Ecologists. Nalini M. Nadkarni Chapter 4.6. A Call For Ethics Literacy in Environmental Education. Alexandria K. Poole, Eugene C. Hargrove, Philip Day, William Forbes, Ginger Potter, Alan R. Berkowitz, Peter Feinsinger and Ricardo Rozzi Index

The chapter builds a metacity framework and details its features and utility. We start by outlining the general strategy for dealing with spatial complexity on various scales by using nested, spatial mosaics (Wu and Wu, Chap. 11, this volume). We then turn to a description of the three kinds of mosaics that are needed to understand and work with urban structure and change in the metacity: processes, choices, and outcomes. The relationship of these three mosaics to urban adaption and resilience is then considered. Resilience and adaptation, and their relationship to the socially constructed goals of sustainability, require a regional focus that does not stumble at de jure or perceived urban/rural boundaries. We end with a fuller description of the metacity as a synthetic tool, relating it to key insights from the chapters in this book. We conclude with a sense of the excitement that the metacity concept brings to the linkage of ecology, social processes, and urban design, as well as its capacity to address the diversity of urban forms that exist or are emerging around the world.

This chapter summarizes the nature of ecological science that is necessary to support a dialogue with urban design. First, ecology, as a science, represents a dialog between the conceptual constructs about how the world works and the observations of the material world itself. Second, ecological science has changed over time, so that generalizations and data available now are often quite different from the knowledge available only a few decades ago. Third, ecological science is invested with rich metaphorical connotations which invite connections with design and with the social sciences. However, the specific models or technical knowledge about the structure and functioning of social-ecological systems are required to support substantive exchange between ecology and urban design. The chapter contrasts traditional ecological research embedded within cities with emerging ecological knowledge exposed by research and models that encompass the entirety of urban systems – summarized as ecology of the city. Along the way, key concepts needed for the dialog between design and ecological science – ecosystem, landscape, metamosaic – are defined and exemplified.

Urban systems are heterogeneous due to a combination of natural and engineered landscape elements, and socio-cultural characteristics and behaviors of individuals and institutions. This chapter aims to address the question: how can an understanding of spatial heterogeneity serve as a bridge connecting ecology and urban design? We discuss the fundamentals of heterogeneity from ecological science and key insights that have emerged from a 10 year collaboration between the ecologists, the architect, and the landscape architect who are its authors. The heterogeneity of an urban system is often depicted using land use/land cover models. These models, however, may be inadequate to capture the heterogeneity that is relevant to ecological processes. We expose the motivations for developing a new land cover model and present that model as an example of a tool to bridge ecology with design. This bridge is still very much under construction and future opportunities for research and application are suggested.

The development of the science of urban ecology in the United States has not been continuous. We identify three specific periods during the twentieth century when the application of ecological science to understanding the structure and dynamics of urban areas gained momentum. We begin with the Chicago School of the 1920s and 1930s that applied concepts from ecological science to understand the spatial differentiation of people and land uses. The second period considered the city as a system. The third, and contemporary period, advocates an inclusive approach that considers cities as integrated ecological and social systems. We use the metaphor of tides to frame our discussion of the developments that allowed the tide to come in and that perhaps also caused that tide to ebb. Each tide however, contributed approaches and understandings that were ready to be used upon the arrival of the next tide.

The different cultures of social equity and ecological science can be bridged by an enhanced understanding of the occurrence of environmental hazards and benefits. Knowledge about ecological disturbance improves understanding of how socio-ecological systems respond to the events that disrupt the structure of systems and the flows of resources within them. It is important to recognize that not all instances of a kind of event, such as fire or flood, will be equally disruptive. In part this is because there are many ecological modifiers, such as biological structure of an ecosystem, topography, and the specific weather and other conditions in place before and during an event, that affect individual events. Furthermore, the human, institutional, and infrastructural capitals available in different locations operate along with biophysical factors that modify disturbance and the response to it. Biophysical response to disturbance is motivated by successional capacity, the resource base of the site, and the neighboring landscape context. Environmental injustices are remarkably persistent due to biophysical patterns of these modifying factors in space. Ecological theory embodies the understanding of disturbance patterns through time and space, lays out the assumptions about the structure of affected systems, and extends the knowledge base beyond the memory of people who must plan for and react to environmental disturbances and stresses.

There is growing scientific interest, practical need, and substantial support for understanding urban and urbanising areas in terms of their long-term social and ecological trajectories: past, present, and future. Long-term social-ecological research (LTSER) platforms and programmes in urban areas are needed to meet these interests and needs. We describe our experiences as a point of reference for other ecologists and social scientists embarking on or consolidating LTSER research in hopes of sharing what we have learned and stimulating comparisons and collaborations in urban, agricultural, and forested systems. Our experiences emerge from work with two urban LTSERs: the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) and the District of Columbia-Baltimore City Urban Long-Term Ecological Research Area-Exploratory DC-BC ULTRA-Ex project. We use the architectural metaphor of constructing and maintaining a building to frame the description of our experience with these two urban LTSERs. Considering each project to be represented as a building gives the following structure to the chapter: (1) building site context; (2) building structure; and (3) building process and maintenance.

In order to help evaluate progress in vegetation science, we present an outline of the components of theory. Theory has both empirically and conceptually based components, and is tied together by a hierarchical framework. Theory is related to observable phenomena to further the most general goal of science, understanding. More specific tactics to advance understanding include explanation, generalization, and testing. Different components of theory permit the operation of specific tactics. Most components of theory are exemplified by one or more aspects of vegetation science. However, there are some conceptual and empirical components in need of further development. We conclude that vegetation science does in fact conform to the contemporary view of a developing theory, and that this theory can serve as a fruitful guide to research and application of concepts to the field.

Questions of successional pattern and causality have been central concerns in vegetation ecology. In this paper we address the limits of the overextended models of Connell and Slatyer by discussing problems encountered in field tests. To help prevent such problems, we define the essential concepts needed to understand succession: pathway, cause, mechanism, and model. We then suggest a more complete enumeration of successional causes, and place them in a three-level hierarchy. The highest level in the hierarchy defines the general and universal conditions under which succession occurs: (1) availability of open sites, (2) differential availability of species, and (3) differential performance of species at the site. To provide a more detailed understanding of succession, each of these causes is decomposed into ecological processes. A further decomposition results in the third level of the hierarchy, which is required to elucidate the mechanisms of succession at particular sites and to make detailed predictions. The hierarchy allows the appropriate causes to be chosen to answer questions about succession at the desired level of generality or level of organization. Recognizing the appropriate level(s) in the hierarchy is critical for the successful explanation of succession, design of experiments, statement of predictions, construction of models and development of general theory.