Long-term ecological research and the COVID-19 anthropause: A window to understanding social-ecological disturbance.

ABSTRACT: The period of disrupted human activity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coined the "anthropause," altered the nature of interactions between humans and ecosystems. It is uncertain how the anthropause has changed ecosystem states, functions, and feedback to human systems through shifts in ecosystem services. Here, we used an existing disturbance framework to propose new investigation pathways for coordinated studies of distributed, long-term social-ecological research to capture effects of the anthropause. Although it is still too early to comprehensively evaluate effects due to pandemic-related delays in data availability and ecological response lags, we detail three case studies that show how long-term data can be used to document and interpret changes in air and water quality and wildlif

SUBMITTER: Gaiser EE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9087370 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature