Self-organizing systems across scales.

Over the past few years, ecologists have increasingly recognized the existence of strong self-reinforcing (or self-organizing) interactions within systems at a variety of scales. Positive feedback within food chains has been reported from terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Accumulating evidence supports the existence within communities of cooperative guilds - tit-for-tat relationships based on diffuse mutualisms and favored by environmental unpredictability. At the landscape level, both real world experience and models indicate that processes such as hydrology and the propagation of disturbance can be strongly self-reinforcing (i.e. the landscape structure supports the process, and vice versa). Hence the picture emerges of a hierarchy of self-organizing systems that span food chains, communities and landscapes/regions.

[1]  P. Bak,et al.  Self-organized criticality. , 1988, Physical review. A, General physics.

[2]  J. D. Thomas.  Mutualistic Interactions in Freshwater Modular Systems with Molluscan Components , 1990 .

[3]  G. W. Lamorey,et al.  The ‘flickering switch’ of late Pleistocene climate change , 1993, Nature.

[4]  Ilan Stavans,et al.  Facts on File , 1993 .

[5]  Kamaljit S. Bawa,et al.  Plant-Pollinator Interactions in Tropical Rain Forests , 1990 .

[6]  Robert M. May,et al.  Species coexistence and self-organizing spatial dynamics , 1994, Nature.

[7]  E. Allen,et al.  The restoration of disturbed arid landscapes with special reference to mycorrhizal fungi , 1989 .

[8]  Donald L. DeAngelis,et al.  Nutrient dynamics and food-web stability , 1989 .

[9]  N. Knowlton.  Thresholds and Multiple Stable States in Coral Reef Community Dynamics , 1992 .

[10]  E. Ben-Jacob,et al.  The formation of patterns in non-equilibrium growth , 1990, Nature.

[11]  P. Barbosa,et al.  Microbial mediation of plant-herbivore interactions , 1991 .

[12]  L. Stone,et al.  Conditions for a Species to Gain Advantage from the Presence of Competitors , 1991 .

[13]  D. C. Malcolm,et al.  The ecology of mixed-species stands of trees. , 1992 .

[14]  Stuart A. Kauffman,et al.  ORIGINS OF ORDER , 2019, Origins of Order.

[15]  S. Milton,et al.  A Conceptual Model of Arid Rangeland Degradation , 1994 .

[16]  N. Stenseth,et al.  Ecological mechanisms and landscape ecology , 1993 .

[17]  Drossel,et al.  Self-organized critical forest-fire model. , 1992, Physical review letters.

[18]  S. Goldhor.  Ecology , 1964, The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine.

[19]  P. Vitousek,et al.  Alien Grass Invasion and Fire In the Seasonal Submontane Zone of Hawai'i , 1991 .

[20]  D. A. Perry,et al.  Influence of vegetation type and madrone soil inoculum on associative nitrogen fixation in Douglas-fir rhizospheres , 1990 .

[21]  Sergio H. Franchito,et al.  Climatic change due to land surface alterations , 1992 .

[22]  Is the universe operating at a self-organized critical state? , 1989 .

[23]  H. Mooney,et al.  Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function , 1994, Praktische Zahnmedizin Odonto-Stomatologie Pratique Practical Dental Medicine.

[24]  R. Ulanowicz,et al.  Evolution in thermodynamic perspective: An ecological approach , 1989 .

[25]  T. Swetnam.  Fire History and Climate Change in Giant Sequoia Groves , 1993, Science.

[26]  R V O'Neill,et al.  Hierarchy theory as a guide to mycorrhizal research on large-scale problems. , 1991, Environmental pollution.

[27]  J. Shukla,et al.  Amazon Deforestation and Climate Change , 1990, Science.

[28]  Robert M. May,et al.  The spatial dynamics of host-parasitoid systems , 1992 .

[29]  L. Stone,et al.  Positive feedback in aquatic ecosystems: The case of the microbial loop , 1993 .

[30]  Fungi and Environmental Change. , 1996 .

[31]  J. Proctor.  Tropical rain forest , 1987 .

[32]  H. Margolis,et al.  Ectomycorrhizal mediation of competition between coniferous tree species. , 1989, The New phytologist.

[33]  T. Hughes.  Catastrophes, Phase Shifts, and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef , 1994, Science.

[34]  David A. Perry,et al.  Bootstrapping in EcosystemsInternal interactions largely determine productivity and stability in biological systems with strong positive feedback , 1989 .

[35]  David A. Perry,et al.  Maintaining the long-term productivity of Pacific Northwest forest ecosystems , 1991 .

[36]  D. A. Perry.  A model of physiological and allometric factors in the self-thinning curve , 1984 .

[37]  David A. Kenny,et al.  The construction and assembly of an ecological landscape , 1993 .

[38]  J F Reynolds,et al.  Biological Feedbacks in Global Desertification , 1990, Science.

[39]  P. Rowntree,et al.  Modelling the effects of albedo change associated with tropical deforestation , 1992 .

[40]  I. Campbell,et al.  Forest disequilibrium caused by rapid Little Ice Age cooling , 1993, Nature.

[41]  Richard Law,et al.  Alternative Permanent States of Ecological Communities , 1993 .

[42]  P. Vitousek,et al.  Biological invasions by exotic grasses, the grass/fire cycle, and global change , 1992 .