Welcome to the Anthropocene

Teaching

Instructor of Record

University of Kentucky

UNC-Chapel Hill


Graduate Teaching Assistant at UNM

Guest lectures

Highlands Biological Station (NC), Global Biodiversity and Macroecology (UNC), Graduate-level Ecological Data Analysis and Application (UNC), Tropical Biodiversity (FMU Sumaco Biological Station, Ecuador)

Fall 2017. Advanced topics in Human Evolutionary Ecology (35 students), UNC-Chapel Hill - Syllabus here.

Beginning in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, I began collaborating with a range of physical, biological, social and health scientists and engineers to develop an interdisciplinary research program we call human macroecology. This research bridges metabolic theory of ecology and statistical analysis of large datasets to identify the unique biological, cultural and technological innovations that have allowed human niche expansion, and how we can sustain the human system within global biophysical constraints.

This research begins to extend the general principles and approach of macroecology to studying humans. It spans hunter-gatherer to modern industrial-urban humans across space and time. It draws on allometric scaling from comparative biology to generate general rules from which to compare the human species. It focuses on the fundamental currencies of energy, materials and information and the general laws that govern the flows of these commodities between humans and our environments, from individual time and energy budgets to scalings of hierarchical societies and modern nation-states.

This list is "alive". It began as background reading for an upper-level undergraduate course I taught at UNC-Chapel Hill. Human macroecology is a young interdisciplinary field, yet draws from some key landmark classic papers. I will continue to add to this list, so please send me your suggestions.

Teaching

Instructor of Record

University of Kentucky

UNC-Chapel Hill


Graduate Teaching Assistant at UNM

Guest lectures

Highlands Biological Station (NC), Global Biodiversity and Macroecology (UNC), Graduate-level Ecological Data Analysis and Application (UNC), Tropical Biodiversity (FMU Sumaco Biological Station, Ecuador)

Fall 2017. Advanced topics in Human Evolutionary Ecology (35 students), UNC-Chapel Hill - Syllabus here.

Beginning in graduate school at the University of New Mexico, I began collaborating with a range of physical, biological, social and health scientists and engineers to develop an interdisciplinary research program we call human macroecology. This research bridges metabolic theory of ecology and statistical analysis of large datasets to identify the unique biological, cultural and technological innovations that have allowed human niche expansion, and how we can sustain the human system within global biophysical constraints.

This research begins to extend the general principles and approach of macroecology to studying humans. It spans hunter-gatherer to modern industrial-urban humans across space and time. It draws on allometric scaling from comparative biology to generate general rules from which to compare the human species. It focuses on the fundamental currencies of energy, materials and information and the general laws that govern the flows of these commodities between humans and our environments, from individual time and energy budgets to scalings of hierarchical societies and modern nation-states.

This list is "alive". It began as background reading for an upper-level undergraduate course I taught at UNC-Chapel Hill. Human macroecology is a young interdisciplinary field, yet draws from some key landmark classic papers. I will continue to add to this list, so please send me your suggestions.

***This page is a work in progress***

***Check back soon for updates***


Welcome to the Anthropocene

Steffen, W. et al. 2017. The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review. 2015;2(1):81-98. doi:10.1177/2053019614564785


Scaling human biology

Hamilton, MJ, O Burger and RS Walker. 2012. Human Ecology. Metabolic Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119968535.ch20.


Life history


Demographic transition

Moses, MA and JH Brown. 2003. Allometry of human fertility and energy use. Ecology Letters. V6, I4. 295-300

DeLong et al. 2011. Current Demographics Suggest Future Energy Supplies Will Be Inadequate to Slow Human Population Growth. PLoS ONE.  5(10): e13206. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013206


Cultural evolution


Cities

Bettencourt, LMA et al. 2007. Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities. PNAS. 104 (17) 7301-7306; DOI:10.1073/pnas.0610172104

Burger, JR, VA Wienberger, PA Marquet. 2017. Extra-metabolic energy use and the rise in human hyper-density. Scientific Reports.

Schell, CJ et al. 2020. The ecological and evolutionary consequences of systemic racism in urban environments. Science. Vol. 369, Issue 6510, eaay4497. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay4497


Food Security

Hammond et al. 2015. Food Spoilage, Storage, and Transport: Implications for a Sustainable Future. BioScience. 65:8, 01. 758–768, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biv081


Sustainability

Burger, JR, CA Allen, JH Brown, WR Burnside, AD Davidson, TS Fristoe, MJ Hamilton, N Mercado-Silva, JC Nekola, JG Okie, W Zuo. 2012. The macroecology of sustainability*. PLoS Biology. 10: e1001345. 


Diversity-Innovation paradox

Hofstra, B. et al. 2020. The Diversity–Innovation Paradox in Science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences., 117 (17) 9284-9291; DOI:10.1073/pnas.1915378117