Defining Community Through the Lens of a Carnivore Biologist and Ecologist

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake - Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota leader). Drawn by Fernando M Castillo in 2014

During my studies to become a wildlife biologist, I have learned to define an ecological community as a group of interacting species that live in the same environment and affect each other's survival and abundance. These interactions can include relationships such as competition, mutualism, and symbiosis. The structure and composition of an ecological community are further shaped by factors like climate, resources, and species interactions, contributing to the overall healthy functioning of an ecosystem.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of life in all its forms, including the diversity of species, genetic variation within species, and the variety of ecosystems in which they live. In ecology, we use biodiversity as a key indicator of the health and stability of an ecosystem and how an ecosystem can support essential ecological functions such as nutrient cycling, pollination, and climate regulation. We measure biodiversity across various dimensions: alpha diversity, quantified in a local patch of habitat; beta diversity, calculated over a network of local patches; and gamma diversity, measured on a regional scale. These terms simply provide a helpful way to describe the diversity at different spatial scales, and their use is flexible depending on the geographic context of the area under study.

Biodiversity indexes are quantitative measures used in ecology to assess species diversity within an ecological community. As ecologists, we are trained to measure biodiversity through various indices. Some leading indices commonly used in ecology include species richness, evenness, and the Shannon-Wiener index. Species richness (S), the most straightforward measure, represents the total number of species in a given area without considering their abundance. Evenness (E) reflects how evenly individuals are distributed among species. Evenness ranges from 0 to 1, with 1 indicating equal abundance of all species. For example, a landscape with 90% of one species and 10% of another has lower biodiversity than one with three species equally represented. Lastly, the Shannon-Wiener Index (H') measures species diversity by accounting for species richness and evenness. Higher values indicate greater diversity.

Other standard indices we employ in quantifying biodiversity are the Simpson's Diversity Index (D), which evaluates the probability that two randomly selected individuals belong to different species where a higher value signifies an increased biodiversity, the Margalef's Index (d), which uses species richness concerning the sample size, offering a relative measure of biodiversity, and the Berger-Parker Index which measures dominance by determining the proportion of the most abundant species relative to the total individuals in the sample.

In ecology, each of these indexes helps us understand ecosystem health, resilience, and the effects of environmental changes on species diversity across various ecosystems. Therefore, a community with high species richness has a greater variety of organisms, which can enhance resilience to environmental changes and disturbances. Often, a higher species richness also leads to more complex relationships, such as competition, predation, and mutualism, which influence the community's structure and function. Understanding species richness is essential for conservation efforts, as maintaining diverse ecological communities supports ecosystem health and sustainability.

Beyond how the field of ecology defines it, a community can be interpreted as more than just a group of people or species living in the same area, competing and establishing transactional interactions; it is a support system, a network of individuals who come together to uplift and assist one another in times of need. Let this explanation of biodiversity and species richness serve as my humble interpretation of how much more prosperous, in human terms, a community is when it is diverse in all aspects of composition, thought, ideology, and perspective.

I grew up in southern Spain and moved to the U.S. in the late 1990s. Since then, I have lived in many areas of this fantastic nation like the amazing states of Oregon, Washington, Florida, Wyoming, New Mexico, and now California. As such, the various communities I have been part of have shaped me into the person I am today, collectively teaching me the values of kindness, perseverance, leadership, and responsibility. Through these events and interactions, I have experienced the profound impact of working together to create a better environment for all. A healthier, more functioning ecosystem, if you will.

Being part of a community also means recognizing our role in each other's lives. The bonds I have formed with other members of those communities, the challenges I have faced, and the lessons I have learned from those who have led me through my path have reinforced my belief in the importance of civic engagement and collective responsibility. The experiences I have gained through helping others have also shaped my values and inspired me to continue working toward the betterment of my community.

In my prior career as a hospitality manager before college, I always sought opportunities to contribute to and support my peers. I learned to prioritize leading by example and setting a standard of excellence, so my team and peers would naturally follow. Leading within my community has also taught me the meaning of authentic leadership, which I can best summarize by the harnessing of empathy, patience, and a commitment to my conspecifics to foster a supportive environment wherein all are encouraged every step of the way, feeling empowered and part of something bigger than the unit.

Beyond school, I have dedicated my time to serving the larger community through various volunteer efforts. One of my most impactful experiences was delivering meals to elderly citizens in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with my sons on Thanksgiving Days, during which we drove around the city distributing food to families in need. Witnessing the joy of those receiving us in their homes helped reinforce my belief in how crucial giving back and helping others is to maintain a sense of community and belonging, a notion I hope I also instilled in my sons.

Another way I have sought to enrich my community is through advocacy and awareness campaigns. I have participated in events to raise awareness for environmental sustainability, social justice issues, and mental health, an issue that is painstakingly close to me. Collaborating with organizations such as WildEarth Guardians, the U.S. National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has helped promote meaningful discussions and encourage proactive solutions to our society's challenges. Through my advocacy work, I have learned that creating positive change begins with spreading awareness and inspiring others to take action. Thus, commitment to my career goals, advocacy, and activism for social causes have further shaped my deep sense of responsibility to effect positive change in my surroundings. By working to conserve wild species and restore our natural ecosystems, I have vowed to stand by and be the voice of those non-human members of my community who cannot advocate for themselves. That same principle now guides me through other aspects of my human community.

My last point to connect it all is illustrated by how some Indigenous communities perceive this sense of bonding and interconnectedness in their communities. When someone becomes ill, many Native American tribes converge with one another, holding ceremonies to help and participate in healing their sick members. This tenet is powerful because it reminds individuals that they belong to a collective and empowers them to promote their healing as they witness their community come as one for them. But more importantly, these Native American communities additionally thank those who fall sick, for through their illness, the community becomes aware of an imbalance in their group and, therefore, can collectively work towards achieving balance again.

As a wildlife biologist and ecologist, I have studied how extirpating keystone species, such as apex predators, niche species that play essential ecological roles, can similarly showcase an imbalance in the ecosystem, launching a cascading chain of effects that sickens the systems they used to inhabit. I have also studied how, upon their return to the landscape, their presence influences the restoration of the ecological community's wholesomeness and resilience, enabling it to resist potential disturbances in the future.

I believe this is a compelling philosophy that, in an individualistic society far removed and disconnected from its natural habitat such as ours, would do wonders to guide us to get back to the essentials of what it means to be human. In my humble opinion, this disconnect from nature and each other as we are further pushed towards the isolation that individualism and today's technological society carry with them is one of the primary sources of human mental health decline, physiological illness, and the overall collapse of societal morality we are currently experiencing. Thus, restoring a more cohesive, richer sense of community, like reintroducing large carnivores to a compromised ecosystem, may improve our societal ecosystem and, consequently, make us healthier individuals.