Human Footprints in the Ecological Landscape

In this chapter we explore how the evolution of human behavior has led to the current condition, the quantitative impact of humans on ecological and biogeochemical processes, and potential strategies for developing a sustainable partnership between humans and the ecosystems in which they operate. Our basic thesis is that humans appear to have uniquely escaped from the Red Queen constraint of adaptive genetic selection. The subsequent consequences of that escape has led to rapid alterations of all ecosystems on Earth. The alterations were so rapid and so strong that they exerted selection pressures not unlike a mass extinction event.