Using Ecotron experimentation to quantify planetary boundaries

As the world’s population grows at unprecedented rates, planetary-scale environmental forcing by humankind continues to push Earth system components out of the equilibrium state. The planetary boundaries framework provides an elegant and comprehensive tool to estimate the extent to which nine key processes of human-induced biosphere alteration affect the stability and resilience of Earth system. Yet quantifying planetary boundaries and especially the interactions between them, based on a process-based understanding of ecosystem functioning, remains a great challenge, as observations and experimentation in natural ecosystems typically provide only a narrow snapshot of a process in question. While conventional controlled environment facilities, such as growth chambers and advanced greenhouses provide a standard tool to simulate environmental change and disentangle processes controlling ecosystem functioning, the capacity of such systems to provide realistic quantifications of ecosystem tipping point is limited, due to (1) a typical focus on a single environmental change process, and (2) a use of simplified, small scale experimental ecosystems. In contrast, novel state-of-the-art terrestrial and aquatic Ecotron research facilities enable both (1) simulation of a wide range of natural environmental conditions, employing  highly realistic scenarios of environmental change, as well as (2) operating with natural ecosystems in their full complexity in replicated design.  An important advantage of ecotrons is a possibility of obtaining long-term (years to decennia scale) and high resolution (minutes-to-days) time series of continues observations of multiple ecosystem functions and their drivers, allowing to infer relations between those in a process-based manner. These advantages are increasingly acknowledged by the scientific community, as having a great potential to help obtaining experimental data to quantify the ecosystem tipping points, accounting for interactions between multiple forces driving planetary boundaries. I will discuss the framework of using a European network of Ecotrons and Ecotorn-like systems within AnaEE ERIC (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems European Research Infrastructure Consortium) in the context of quantification of planetary boundaries, and will present a suit of a case studies illustrating assessments of cascading effects of land use change and climate change on ecosystem integrity, terrestrial above and belowground biodiversity, terrestrial and oceanic biogeochemical cycles, and soil moisture regime. I aim to inspire a discussion about new avenues in assessment of planetary boundary levels based on high throughput experimental and observational data obtained in ecotron-like experimental facilities.