Ecosystem Health, Restoration, and Services

In previous chapters, it is shown that ecosystems are open, nonlinear, complex systems that exist in the natural world at the interface of the sea, air, and land. In this area, also called the Coastal Transition Zone (CTZ), there are assemblages of bivalves that consume more energy and produce more entropy than most other living systems. With the United Nation’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) of life on our planet targeted for the year 2000, interests turned to investigations of the role ecosystems dominated by nonhumans played in processes critical to human sustainability and systems health. Important Terms and Concepts Indigenous

A species within its natural range.

Interstitial space

Small, three-dimensional space that together with spat, adults, and shell fragments are a major source of biodiversity.

Introduced

A species is introduced specifically by human activities.

Invasion

A nonindigenous species moved out of its range by both human activities and natural range expansion.

Invasive species

A nonindigenous species that becomes successfully established.

MEA

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of the United Nations.

Seascape ecology

The submerged equivalent of landscape ecology in the coastal zone.

Veneer

A flat layer of oyster spat that forms the top of an oyster reef.