Element Interactions and the Cycles of Life

Co-chairs: Christopher B. Field (USA), Jerry M. Melillo (USA), Bedrich Moldan (Czech Republic)

The biogeochemical cycles of C, H, O, N, P and S and perhaps as many as 25 other elements sustain life on earth. As these elements move through the environment, sometimes in inorganic forms and sometimes in organic forms, they interact in a variety of ways. Human activities alter element interactions and many of these interactions have important consequences for basic ecosystem processes. Looking to the future, element cycles and their interactions must be managed to ensure success in fostering the transition to a sustainable use of our planet's environment.

In the early 1980s SCOPE produced a scientific assessment on interactions among biogeochemical cycles (SCOPE 21, Bolin and Cook 1983). The assessment's foundation was the basic stoichiometric model of life. While the stoichiometric model was challenged in SCOPE 21, it stood up well as a basic approach for thinking about element interactions. However, over the past two decades, we have gained new insights into element interactions and ecological stoichiometry in water and land ecosystems. It was time to revisit this crucial environmental issue.

SCOPE inaugurated its series of Rapid Assessment Projects (RAPs) with an international workshop on "Interactions of the Major Biogeochemical Cycles". Forty experts convened at Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) in October 2002.

When we manage element interactions, we need to place a priority on not making new problems in attempts to solve old ones. Many of the workshop’s discussions about new approaches to the study of element interactions called for new intellectual partnerships among biogeochemists and geologists, molecular biologists, engineers and social scientists.

The volume that resulted from this meeting, SCOPE 61, Interactions of the Major Biogeochemical Cycles: Global Change and Human Impacts, illustrates both the needs and the tools for further advancements in the study of the earth as an integrated system. It was published by Island Press in October 2003 in the SCOPE Series.

Last up-dated 7 June 2004