How is the Process Network Organized and When Does it Show Emergent Properties in a Forest Ecosystem?

Abstract

Ecosystems are open, self-organizing systems and energy of different quantity and quality provides the stimulus for organization, enabling different processes to progress at different rates. Here, information acts internally within the system to constrain its behavior, which can also flow into the system from outside, thereby prompting the self-organizing processes. The interplay of environmental conditions, energy, matter, and information defines the context and constraints for the set of processes and structures that may emerge during self-organization. Using the KoFlux tower-based measurements of energy, water and CO 2 flux time series in 2008 in a temperate forest in Korea, we have evaluated statistical measures of characterizing the organization of the information flow in ecohydrological process networks in a forest ecosystem. Here, process network is a network of feedback loops and direction of flow of matter, energy and information between the differ- ent variables. The goal of this study is to understand how ecosystem organization changes in time, and identify and characterize network-scale emergent properties by quantifying the varying ecosystem states. Ecosystem integrity is preserved when its self-organizing processes are preserved. The inherent challenges associated with the time series data and the potential use of this conceptual approach and statistical tools are discussed for sustainable ecosystem management.