Quantitative characterization system for macroecosystem attributes and states.
Guirui Yu, Zhitong Yu, Fei Yu, Tian-Xiang Hao, Jian-Xing Zhu · PubMed · 2025
Macroecosystem science is dedicated to exploring and understanding the mechanisms underlying ecosystem structure, function, and processes. Accurately measuring and quantitatively describing the basic properties and state changes of ecosystem, and establishing corresponding measurement methods and dimensional systems, are key steps in promoting the development of macroecosystem research. Therefore, based on traditional ecosystem element attributes such as biology and soil, as well as researches on biological traits at the levels of organs, individuals, and species, constructing measurement methods and dimensional systems that quantitatively characterize the intrinsic properties and state changes of ecosystem, and developing new macroecosystem research theories and application systems, are fundamental theoretical and methodological issues that urgently need to be addressed in macroecosystem science research. In this article, we started from the attribute state and dimensional system of traditional phy-sics, systematically discussed the theoretical methods, measurement variables, and dimensional systems for quantitatively describing ecosystem properties and states, proposed the concepts of ecosystem traits (ESTs) and multi-dimensional ecosystem trait networks (ETNs), and extended them to the measurement and application analysis of macroecosystem traits, aiming to deepen the understanding of ecosystem structure composition, operating mechanisms, and state evolution monitoring and evaluation, and promote regional and global conservation, comprehensive resource utilization, and sustainable development of economy and society.