The ecosystem perspective

Abstract

A major direction in ecosystem studies lies in examining how communities respond to their environments, and how this results in the resilience shown by most ecosystems. While there may be homeostasis at the ecosystem level, despite a lack of strong internal controls, this must be understood in terms of the processes of the component populations in their environment. It is argued that there is greater similarity than difference between aquatic and terrestrial systems because they are constrained by the same physical and chemical laws. The existence of emergent properties is discussed, and scientific methods in ecology are outlined: ecological explanation, prediction and knowledge; laws and paradigms; theories; normic and probabilistic explanations; and revolutions in science. -P.J.Jarvis