Ecological autocatalysis: a central principle in ecosystem organization?

Michiel P Veldhuis,Matty P Berg,Michel Loreau,Han Olff

doi:10.1002/ecm.1292

Abstract

AbstractEcosystems comprise flows of energy and materials, structured by organisms and their interactions. Important generalizations have emerged in recent decades about conversions by organisms of energy (metabolic theory of ecology) and materials (ecological stoichiometry). However, these new insights leave a key question about ecosystems inadequately addressed: are there basic organizational principles that explain how the interaction structure among species in ecosystems arises? Here we integrate recent contributions to the understanding of how ecosystem organization emerges through ecological autocatalysis (EA), in which species mutually benefit through self‐reinforcing circular interaction structures. We seek to generalize the concept of EA by integrating principles from community and ecosystem ecology. We discuss evidence suggesting that ecological autocatalysis is facilitated by resource competition and natural selection, both central principles in community ecology. Furthermore, we suggest that pre‐emptive resource competition by consumers and plant resource diversity drive the emergence of autocatalytic loops at the ecosystem level. Subsequently, we describe how interactions between such autocatalytic loops can explain pattern and processes observed at the ecosystem scale, and summarize efforts to model different aspect of the phenomenon. We conclude that EA is a central principle that forms the backbone of the organization in systems ecology, analogous to autocatalytic loops in systems chemistry.

Highlights

The systems biology approach has radically changed the fields of biochemistry, cell biology, and organismal physiology in recent decades (Hartwell et al 1999, Kitano 2002, Raes and Bork 2008, Keurentjes et al 2011)
We further develop the concept of ecological autocatalysis, which is a self-reinforcing circular species interaction structure, captures the nutrient cycling aspect of ecosystems, and links producers, consumers, decomposers, and additional non-trophic interactions with important selforganizing features at the system level
Ulanowicz (Ulanowicz 1997, 2009a, Ulanowicz and AbarcaArenas 1997), we explore the idea that sets of biological species that form autocatalytic loops logically arise at the ecosystem level through self-organization

Summary

Introduction

The systems biology approach has radically changed the fields of biochemistry, cell biology, and organismal physiology in recent decades (Hartwell et al 1999, Kitano 2002, Raes and Bork 2008, Keurentjes et al 2011). We further develop the concept of ecological autocatalysis, which is a self-reinforcing circular species interaction structure, captures the nutrient cycling aspect of ecosystems, and links producers, consumers, decomposers, and additional non-trophic interactions with important selforganizing features at the system level. The universality of circular interaction structures and its importance for ecosystem organization is well accepted (as the concept of nutrient cycling), the autocatalytic (self-enforcing) nature of such loops is not.

Results

Conclusion