Additional empirical evidence on the intrinsic trend to stationarity in the long run and the nested relationship between abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors starting from the organic biophysics of ecosystems (OBEC)

Abstract

Conventional ecology lacks a non-contingent theory on the relationship between abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors under natural or quasi-natural conditions. As a result, since ecology is the science that studies the interaction between ecological factors in nested complex systems, we should recognize that ecology needs significant enhancements to understand the functioning of ecosystems. This article combines the ecological state equation (ESE, one of the earliest models derived from the Organic Biophysics of Ecosystem –OBEC), with abundant field data of abiotic factors, biotic factors and human factors from inland water rotifers and crustaceans (1022 samples taken over 21 years), litter invertebrates in laurel forest and pine forest (308 samples), and marine interstitial meiofauna of sandy beaches (90 samples). This has been done in order to obtain additional empirical evidence on the intrinsic trend to stationarity in the long run, even in perturbed ecosystems (man-made eutrophic water reservoirs, forest vegetation affected by traffic, and coastal ecosystems close to disposal points of sewage that are fully or partially treated, respectively to the above-mentioned taxocenes), and the relationship between the above-mentioned ecological factors. Our results indicate that there is a complex natural arrangement that intertwines the trend to stationarity and the resilience capability of ecosystems with a clear pattern of hierarchical setup between ecological factors. This is reflected by the role of ESE as a trophodynamic interface in hierarchical statistical models (cluster analysis) because they involve, in the following order of increasing rank: lower level abiotic factors (a.f.), biotic factors (b.f.), the holistic combination of state variables included in the ESE and, finally, higher level human factors (h.f.). In such a way, there is a clear trend to a hierarchical assemblage in agreement with the evolutionary origin of ecological factors in the deep time, as well as in regard to the net direction (⟵) of ecological homeostasis: a.f. ⟵ b.f. ⟵ h.f. In this setup, the ESE accomplishes a key liaison role, because it reflects a long run trend to stationarity which allows an essential degree of ecological stability, as well as our capability to classify ecosystems, in spite of the random influence of ecological perturbations in the short run. The above-mentioned set of additional evidence can be regarded as a step to develop a non-contingent theory about the relationship between abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic factors. Furthermore, since the OBEC, in its origin, deals with only the dynamics of biotic variables, this is the first time that the interaction between one of its main models and other kind of ecological factors is studied yielding reliable results in the process.