The Human Biosphere: A Narrative Review of Global Change, Anthropogenic Biomes, and the Rise of Novel Ecosystems
Year: 2026
Type: review
Abstract: Global change has redrawn the biosphere's map: the biomes that vegetation science once mapped as products of climate alone are now, across most of the ice-free land, products of sustained human use. This article presents a narrative review of the primary literature of that transformation. The synthesis is organized around three themes: the anthropogenic biosphere, in which Vitousek's human domination, Foley's land-use consequences, and Ellis and Ramankutty's anthropogenic biomes replaced the pristine biome with a socio-ecological mosaic; the novel ecosystems' debate, in which Hobbs, Higgs, Harris, and Seastedt confronted ecology with systems assembled from new species combinations and no historical analogue, forcing a redefinition of restoration's goals; and the planetary frame, in which Crutzen's Anthropocene, Steffen's great forces, Rockström's safe operating space, and Barnosky's state-shift warning scaled the biome's story to the Earth system. It is concluded that global change research's central lesson is the end of the wilderness baseline: ecology's task is no longer to preserve a world without people, but to steward a world made of people and ecosystems together.
Authors: Revista, Zen, BIOLOGY, 10
Institution: Faculdades Guarulhos
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204748940