The properties of the ecological hierarchy and their application as ecological indicators
Section snippets
Introduction: the hierarchical organization
The ecosphere is organized hierarchically and may be briefly described as going from molecules, via cells, tissues, organs, individuals, species, populations, communities, ecosystems, landscapes, regions to the ecosphere. The biological hierarchy is easy to observe. The biochemical processes take place in the cells, which have molecular components and structure via the genomes not only to control the processes, but also to protect the genome itself by membranes. In vertebrates, there are many
Interactions between the hierarchical levels
Fig. 2 shows how the processes on one level of the hierarchy determine the conditions in the next level immediately above and how a level regulates and controls a lower level by feedbacks. For a strict thermodynamic interpretation of the relations in such systems see Nielsen (2009). A specific level consists of interacting and cooperative entities that are again in turn integrated as components in a higher organizational level. The interaction of the entities in one level produce an integral
The frequency of disturbances
The magnitude of variations, disturbances and catastrophic events has a frequency that varies according to the power law (see Bak, 1996). The frequency, F, as function of the magnitude, M, is therefore expressed by the following equationAn example is the distribution of earthquake intensities. Fig. 3 shows as an example the frequency versus the earthquake intensities (M) in the Richter scale (which is logarithmic) in a district in U.S. with many earthquakes taken place during a decade.
Selection of indicators that can account for the hierarchical properties
Let us consider a landscape that has a size of 100 km × 100 km = 10,000 km2. If it consists of only one ecosystem, an agricultural wheat field, the landscape is very vulnerable to random disturbances as for instance the weather and pests. If it consists let us say of 100 different ecosystems: wetlands, forests, grasslands, agricultural fields preferably of different types, lakes and ponds, river and streams, the landscape would be much less vulnerable to drought or pest attack. It is probably accepted
Summary and conclusions
It has been shown how it is possible to quantify openness and thereby understand the dynamics on the various levels of the ecological hierarchy. The ecological hierarchy provides all the levels of the hierarchy including the ecosystems and landscapes with very important properties. The higher levels can benefit from the more dynamic lower levels and at the same time provide important regulations of the lower levels. The lower levels may due to their dynamic change more radically by random
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