“Follow the Spiders”: Ecosystems as Early Warnings - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 341

include forecasting of changes in bioindicators under global warming or other
anthropogenic pressures (for an example, see Ibanez et al. 2010 ). This could help
verify bioindicator utility in the long term. The costs and benefi ts of incorporating
bioindicators into forecasting should also be evaluated. Bioindicators need to add
value to existing early warning systems, and the added value must be greater than
the cost of integration. In the past, the utility of bioindicator systems has not been
made clear to policy-makers (Newman and Zillioux 2009 ). There is a lack of litera-
ture on the use of biological indicators by industry, government agencies, and non-
governmental organizations (Burger 2009 ). Only 6 % of the articles in the fi rst three
volumes of the journal Environmental Bioindicators related directly to the use of
indicators for monitoring or discussed regulatory implications of bioindicators
(Natesan and Slimak 2006 ). If bioindicators are to be used more widely, this needs
to change.
To quote Holt and Miller ( 2011 ), “Historically, canaries accompanied coal miners
deep underground. Their small lung capacity and unidirectional lung ventilation
system made them more vulnerable to small concentrations of carbon monoxide
and methane gas than their human companions.” As late as 1986, the birds served as
a biological indicator of unsafe conditions in coal mines in the United Kingdom.
Practitioners and policy-makers in the fi eld of disaster risk reduction and early
warning systems should start looking for more canaries.
Acknowledgments The author is grateful for the insightful comments received from two reviewers
and for the editing assistance of friends, family, and colleagues.
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