Chapter 30 6.3 Ecosystem: superorganism, or identity workshop ?

In 1916, Frederick Clements, one of the founders of ecology, called biomes such as beech hardwood forests naturally occurring superorganisms.In his words, the climax community constitutes a superorganism, because "its main characteristics of birth, development, maturity, and death... are comparable to the life course of a single plant." Since the forest itself can Fields are reseeded, which Clements describes as reproduction, another property of living organisms.To any keen observer, the beech-maple grove exhibits almost as much integrity and identity as the crow.What else could we call a (super)organism capable of reliably reproducing itself and spreading across clearings and barren sand?

In the 1920s, superorganisms were a buzzword among biologists.Used to describe an idea that was novel at the time: swarms of agents acting in concert to produce phenomena whose expression is controlled by the group as a whole.Just as spots of mold aggregate themselves into slime molds, an ecosystem can coalesce into a stable superorganization—a bee colony or a forest.A Georgia pine forest behaves differently than a single pine tree.The Texas Sagebrush Wilderness is also different from a single sagebrush tree in the same way that a flock of birds is not one big bird, they are another organism.The flora and fauna united into loose federations, exhibiting a superorganism with its own unique ways of behaving.

Clements' rival, the biologist Gleason, another father of modern ecology, argued that the idea of ​​a federation of superorganisms was far-fetched and largely a product of the human psyche, trying to spot patterns everywhere .Gleason objected to Clements' hypothesis, proposing that climax communities were merely fortuitous associations of organisms whose rise and fall depended on local climate and geological conditions.An ecosystem is more of a federation than a community—uncertain, diverse, inclusive, and ever-changing. The myriad changes in nature provide evidence for both views.In some places, the boundaries between communities are well-defined, more in line with the expectation that ecosystems are superorganisms.Along the rocky coast of the Pacific Northwest, there are barren, uninhabited beaches between high-tide kelp colonies and waterside spruce forests.Standing in the narrow sand-salt area several feet wide, it seems as if the two superorganisms on both sides are busy with their respective troubles.Another example is the striking impenetrable border between deciduous forests and wildflower-laden prairies in the Midwest.

To unravel the mystery of ecological superorganisms, biologist William Hamilton began modeling ecosystems on computers in the 1970s.He found that in his models (as in real life) very few systems self-organize into any kind of durable coherence.The examples I have given above are exceptions in the wildlife world.He also found several other examples: For thousands of years, sphagnum peat bogs resisted the encroachment of pine trees.The same goes for the tundra tundra.But most ecological communities have stumbled into hybrid hybrids that, as a whole, do not provide the community as a whole with a special capacity for self-defense.In the long run, most ecological communities, whether simulated or real, are vulnerable to external intrusion.

Gleason is correct.The connections between members of an ecosystem are far more variable and ephemeral than the connections between members of an organism.From a cybernetic point of view, the difference in control between organisms like tadpoles and ecosystems like freshwater swamps is that individual organisms are tightly bound, while ecosystems are loose and untethered. In the long run, biomes are temporary networks.Although some communities are closely related and border on symbiotic, most species walk aimlessly with different partners during the evolutionary period as the partners themselves evolve.

On an evolutionary timescale, ecology can be seen as a long dress rehearsal.For biotypes, it's an identity workshop.Species switch roles Try to work with each species and explore partnerships.Over time, role-playing is built into the genes of an organism.In poetic terms, genes are unwilling to incorporate into their code any interactions and functions that depend on the way their neighbors behave, because neighbors change and replace every moment.Genes would rather pay something to remain flexible, independent, and free. Also, Clements is right.There is some sort of basin of efficiency: a stable state of harmony that can be achieved for a particular mixed population, ceteris paribus.For example, imagine the way rocks on either side of a valley roll down to the bottom.Not all rocks will land on the valley floor; certain rocks may get stuck on a small hill.Similarly, somewhere between mountains and rivers, a stable mixed community of intermediate-level species that has not reached the state of the climax community can also be found.Over extremely short geological periods—hundreds of thousands of years—ecosystems form an intimate group, independent of the outside world and without the addition of additional species.The lives of these associations are even far shorter than those of individual species, which typically last a million or two years.

For evolution to work, there has to be some connectivity among the players; so in those tightly connected systems, the dynamics of evolution are able to do what they can.In loosely connected systems, such as ecological systems, economic systems, and cultural systems, what happens is less structured adaptation.We know so little about the general dynamics of loose systems because such scattered changes are messy and infinitely indirect.Early cybernetician Howard Patty defined hierarchy as a spectrum of connectivity.He said, "In the eyes of an idealist, everything in the world is connected—and maybe it is. Everything is connected, and some things are more connected than others." The hierarchy defined by Patty is a product of connectivity differentiation within the system.Those members who are loosely connected so as to be "flat" tend to form an independent organizational level, which is separated from the areas where the members are closely connected.Different regions of connectivity generate hierarchical structures.

In the most general terms, evolution is a tight network, and ecology is a loose network.Evolutionary change is like a force-bound process, much like a mathematical calculation, or even a thought process.In this sense, it is "sane".Ecological change, on the other hand, appears to be a low-intelligence, roundabout process centered on the bodies of organisms that resist wind, water, gravity, sunlight, and rock.Ecologist Robert Rockliffe wrote, "The [ecological] properties of communities are products of the environment rather than of evolutionary history."Evolution is governed directly by the flow of symbolic information generated by genes or computer chips, while ecology is governed by less abstract but more haphazard complexity that comes out of the flesh.

Because evolution is such a process full of symbolic information, we can now artificially create and control it, but because ecological changes are constrained by the ontology of organisms, only when we can more easily simulate biological bodies and richer artificial environments, to be synthesized.