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Plants Shape the Terrestrial Environment on Earth: Challenges of Management for Sustainability

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Progress in Botany 77

Part of the book series: Progress in Botany ((BOTANY,volume 77))

Abstract

Plants tend to occupy any suitable space available on Earth. They shape the inorganic terrestrial environment in a dynamic way through the geological ages. They affect the climate. They impact—with manifold kinds of biotic interactions—on the evolution of animals and microorganisms. They are the dominating primary producers of biomass on Earth and feed the other organisms. The Gaia concept of James Lovelock considers the entire biosphere as a supraorganism and postulates self-sustained stability. Plants play a major role in such self-management of nature. Natural self-management is juxtaposed with anthropogenic management, the former tending to sustain, the latter to exploit the biosphere. Anthropogenic management comprises agriculture and forestry. With relations to plants, the greatest challenge is intensified agriculture to feed 9.6 billion people by the year 2050. Faced with limited and declining resources, pollution, exploratory land use, sociopolitical ideologies, and by unavoidably contributing to some of these problems itself, agriculture is running into vicious cycles. Can agriculture and forestry learn from ecology? To which extent can ecological principles be introduced to them for securing sustained stability of productivity? Man assumes he “is the possessor of the planet, if not the owner,” rather than the “tenant.” Conversely, “the Gaia hypothesis implies that the stable state of our planet includes man as a part of, or partner in, a very democratic entity” (Lovelock, Gaia: A new look at life on Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979). Can natural self-management and anthropogenic management be harmonized, given that mankind learns to conceive itself as part rather than owner of nature?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    www.emscherlandschaftspark.de

  2. 2.

    http://www.metropoleruhr.de/tr/freizeit-sport/natur-erleben/route-industrie

  3. 3.

    Wird derhalben die größte Kunst, Wissenschaft, Fleiß und Einrichtung hiesiger Lande darinnen beruhen, wie eine sothane Conservation und Anbau des Holtzes anzustellen, daß es eine continuirliche beständige und nachhaltende Nutzung gebe, weiln es eine unentbehrliche Sache ist, ohne welche das Land in seinem Esse nicht bleiben mag.

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Acknowledgment

I thank Rainer Matyssek for critically reading the manuscript and for many valuable comments.

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  1. Department of Biology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Schnittspahn-Straße 3-5, 64287, Darmstadt, Germany

    Ulrich Lüttge

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  1. Ulrich Lüttge
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  1. FB Biologie, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Ulrich Lüttge

  2. Depto. Biología Molecular y, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    Francisco M. Cánovas

  3. Hans-Carl-von-Carlowitz-Platz Wissenscha, Technische Universität München, Freising, Germany

    Rainer Matyssek

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Lüttge, U. (2016). Plants Shape the Terrestrial Environment on Earth: Challenges of Management for Sustainability. In: Lüttge, U., Cánovas, F., Matyssek, R. (eds) Progress in Botany 77. Progress in Botany, vol 77. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25688-7_6

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