Thermodynamics of ecological networks

A complex ecosystem can be described as an ecological network, indicating how mass, energy, and information are transferred from one component to another within the ecosystem. The possible interactions between two components (symbiosis, prey–predator, competition, commensalism, amensalism, and indifference) all become more beneficial for both components due to the presence of the network that ensures constant cycling of matter, energy, and information. Various measures of the network organization have been proposed—MacArthur’s diversity index, the trophic diversity, ascendancy, exergy storage, and indirect effect relative to direct effect. The four latter have demonstrated different interpretations of network organization. It is demonstrated that ascendancy is a good measure of the organization of the network, but the concept has two shortcomings—it is not dynamic and it does not take into account storages. Exergy has the advantage as the measure of ecosystem organization as it is able to account for storages and genetic information. Furthermore, the ecological networks are able to deal with almost any realistic input in one way or another. A thermodynamic analysis of bogs reveals that they show equilibrium storages.