Organisms and Species as Complex Adaptive Systems: Linking the Biology of Populations with the Physics of Ecosystems

Abstract

Historical constraints of paradigms, approaches, training, and methodology currently prevent the conceptual unification of ecology. They inhibit communication and collaboration between the biologists who study the structure and dynamics of populations and communities and the earth scientists, physicists, chemists, and biologists who study the distribution and fluxes of energy and materials in ecosystems. To link the attributes of individual organisms and species with the biogeochemical processes that occur in their environments requires an integration of biology and the physical sciences.