Ecosystems emerging: toward an ecology of complex systems in a complex future

This is the first paper in a projected series which will attempt to identify a set of elementary principles that can be considered to provide a sufficient basis for a comprehensive theory of complex ecosystems. These principles emerged from studies of ecosystems by means of mathematical models. Our approach will be holistic, as opposed to the still dominant reductionism that prevails both in ecosystem studies and ecological modelling. We hold that a full reductionistic recognition of major ecosystem components not only exceeds what is possible to do, but also that it is inadequate because an ecosystem is more than the sum of its parts. The principles delineated in this paper for further subsequent elaboration arise from strict applications of elementary laws of physics, chemistry, biology and ecology, extended to higher level rules derived from nonlinear, far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, cybernetics and network analysis.