New mix of alien and native species coexists in Puerto Rico's landscapes.

Abstract

The advent of the Homogeocene (Putz 1997), Homogecene (McKinney & Lockwood 1999; Lockwood & McKinney 2001) or Homogocene (Lodge & Shrader-Frechette 2003) – the era of human domination of the world – is both a challenge and an opportunity to test the ingenuity of humans. Will we be able to establish a new and sustainable balance with the rest of the world’s biota? To do so requires active management of biodiversity based on understanding the function and dynamics of ecosystems. Appropriately, the approach to the study of the biota is undergoing a shift from a taxonomic, distributional and evolutionary focus, to a paradigm that considers biodiversity and ecosystem function (Naeem 2002). This new approach is holistic and quantitative, and helpful in understanding the role of biodiversity in the Homogeocene (Lugo 1995, 2002a).

Citation

Lugo, A. E. and Brandeis, T. J. 2005. New mix of alien and native species coexists in Puerto Rico''s landscapes. Burslem, D. F. R. P.; Pinard, M. A., and Hartley, S. E., editors. Biotic interactions in the tropics: their role in the maintenance of species diversity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; pp. 484-509.