Response to comments on “Uncertainty principle in niche assessment: A solution to the dilemma redundancy vs. competitive exclusion, and some analytical consequences”

Abstract

The influence of quantum ecological uncertainty (QEU: a discrete statistical trade-off between the standard deviations of species diversity and energy, two indicators that are essential to define the ecological niche of every species), has been proposed as a plausible explanation to the debate between the competitive exclusion principle (CEP) and the hypothesis of functional redundancy (HFR). The debate CEP ↔ HFR is a manifestation of the wide spectrum of issues connected with a very important problem in ecology: the so-called “biodiversity paradox” (i.e.: How is it possible that so many species can coexist despite the underlying influence of interspecific competition?). Any testable theoretical alternative to explain species coexistence depends on an accurate assessment of the ecological niche in practice. However, under QEU, the assessment of ecological niche cannot be as accurate as we want due to an objective limitation of nature: the above-mentioned trade-off. Consequently, it is nonsense following the debate about this topic in the conventional way; it is necessary to change our traditional point of view about this issue in order to develop a non-conventional interpretation of ecosystem functioning. However, QEU has been strongly criticized in a recently published article. This article is devoted to clarify certain misunderstandings whose nature is evident by reading the above-mentioned criticism and its precursory publications in comparison with the spectrum of articles that supports QEU. The general fulfillment of QEU has also been questioned by the above-mentioned criticism, so it is additionally supported in this article by a noticeably abbreviated inclusion of results from field data, surveyed under different circumstances in comparison with previous data, from two inland water taxocenes (zooplankton rotifers and crustaceans, Acton Lake, Ohio, U.S.A.) to which this model has not been applied so far. Our general conclusion is that the criticism to QEU has been groundlessly proposed due to epistemological inaccuracies; fragmentary understanding about the principles connected with QEU; as well as an incomplete literature review.