Trends in Ecology and Evolution Article calls Prof. Erle Ellis’s Remapping of Global Biomes ‘Seminal’

A forthcoming paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, the world’s most-cited journal of environmental science and ecology, praises research by UMBC professor Erle Ellis that remaps the globe’s ecosystems to account for human impact as ‘seminal.’

The paper, “Anthropogenic biomes: a key contribution to earth-system science,” by Lilian Alessa of the University of Alaska Anchorage and F. Stuart Chapin III of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, spotlighted research by Ellis and his colleague Navin Ramankutty of McGill University that was originally published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The research uses Google Maps and Google Earth technology to map a new system of ‘anthropogenic biomes’ or human biomes, which describe the biosphere as it exists today, the result of human shepherding and reshaping of ecosystems.

To view a Discover.com video on Ellis’s work, click the play button below.