What is Telecoupling? Part 2
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Dec. 16, 2013
Jackie Hulina was a master's student in the Michigan State University's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability.
When last we met, I threw a bunch of jargon around.
If you’re anything like me, you wonder what all this jargon is and why it’s necessary. Systems and agents might make sense, but how do you decide which ones are relevant? What is a flow and how do you measure it? You thought you understand causes and effects, but now you’re questioning what that even means. Then there’s the biggest question of them all: how is telecoupling any different than collecting and sorting a bunch of previous research?
Systems describe places where humans and their activities somehow interact with the environment and/or its inhabitants.
For the Kirtland’s warbler, there are two major systems: breeding and wintering habitats. Recall from our Michigan Recipe for KW that breeding systems are generally characterized by young jack pines, cowbird removal, and lots of habitat management. Wintering systems are similar in habitat structure, but very different as far as human involvement due to complex land ownership laws.
Technically breeding and wintering systems can each be referred to as “sending” or “receiving,” depending on your perspective. Since seasonal variations (ex. temperature, rainfall) in the Bahamas affect Kirtland’s warblers’ breeding success, it makes the most sense to classify wintering systems as “sending” and breeding systems as “receiving.”
~ Interesting fact: Drought in the Bahamas causes Kirtland's warblers to arrive later for the breeding season, which reduces their breeding success. See paper here. ~The spillover systems can be anything that affects or is affected by the sending/receiving systems. Admittedly, this is a much more abstract idea. We tend to have less information about anything that is not a direct cause-effect relationship, but indirect relationships can be crucial – especially collectively. Since we don’t know much about them, spillover systems pose a huge opportunity for further research.
