Biological Ecosystem Research Articles

Commentary—Lessons from Nature: Enhancing the Adaptable Potential of Service Ecosystems

Organisms and species have evolved through adaptation and extinction for over a billion years. Service science can learn from this large library of success and failure because species interact and struggle for survival in biological ecosystems in many of the same way as organizations and other actors behaves in service ecosystems. The authors draw upon their collective knowledge of biological ecosystems, biological evolution, business, and service science to develop an integrated framework, including rules of adaptability, adaptability practices, and guidelines for creating adaptable systems. Collectively, these key lessons from the biological world can be used to help organizations be a vital part of service ecosystems adaptability and can be the catalyst for the emergence of innovation.

Screening of Antifouling Compound Producing Marine Actinobacteria against Biofouling Bacteria Isolated from Poultries of Namakkal District, South India

Growth of biofouling microorganisms in surfaces of poultry, marine and other ecosystems is one of the major issues. Thus it is essential to control the growth of biofouling bacterial growth in surface of biological ecosystem. The present study has aimed to isolate novel antifouling compound from marine actinobacterial isolates. A total of 55 actinobacteria were isolated from Palk Strait coastal region (Bay of Bengal), Tamilnadu, India. All of them were preliminarily screened for their antifouling activity against six different biofouling bacterial (BFB) species isolated from poultry farms by cross streak plate method. Among them, 20 isolates possessed antibacterial activity against biofouling bacteria. From the 20 antifouling compound producers, 10 actinobacterial isolates were selected for further confirmation of antifouling compound production and their antifouling efficacies by shake flask culture method. Of them, one potential strain VS6 was found to be more active against all the six BFB. Thus, the result of the present study represents that the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu are rich in antifouling compound producing actinobacteria.

Mechanisms for Realizing the Economic Values of Ecosystem Services

The fact that ecosystem services have values that can be quantified has been widely accepted in recent years. Part of the economic values of ecosystem services have been realized partly by ecological compensation of fiscal transfer payments at different levels, trade and consumption of leisure tourism and ecological products, and carbon sequestration forest funds sponsored by non-governmental capital. However, it remains difficult to realize the economic value of ecosystem services as industrial products and support the coordinated and sustainable development of nature, economy and society. To reveal the role of ecological compensation, consumption of biological products, leisure tourism and ecosystem services trading in realizing the economic values of ecosystem services, we analyzed the composition, transfer and consumption pattern of ecosystem services. In order to provide theoretical and technological support for inter-regional ecological compensation, ecosystem service industry development and ecosystem services trade, the concept of ecosystem services credit and key problems with ecosystem services trading are proposed.

The Ecology of Software Ecosystems

Software ecosystems--collections of software projects developed and used by the same community--are extremely complex. Comparing them with biological ecosystems can yield new strategies for improving their effectiveness and resilience.

DATA ACQUISITION AND DATA PROCESSING CHALLENGES IN HEAVY METAL MEASUREMENTS

Water quality is a key factor to preserve human life quality, as well as, environmental and biological ecosystems. This paper highlights specific issues related with the acquisition and data processing of heavy metal measurement systems. Between the main challenges related with this kind of measurements, such as the ones related with the very low signal amplitudes to be measured, since very low concentrations, in the order of tens of p.p.b., of some heavy metals, can be very dangerous for human life and for ecosystems sustainability. Additional challenges, that are associated with online heavy metals measurements, are related with the capability to obtain accurate results using a low number of measurement points. Thus, the main goal of this paper is a comparison of different data processing algorithms that can be used to improve heavy metal measurement accuracy when a segmented voltammetric voltage scan is performed with a low number of measurement points. Regarding data processing of the measurement data, B-Spline, Gaussian and artificial neural network based techniques are compared with traditional least mean square techniques based on polynomial curve fitting. The performance of each technique is evaluated in terms of the required number of measurement points, for a given root mean square deviation between curve fitted and experimental data. A brief comparison of the different techniques, in terms of insensitivity to errors caused by measurement data outliers, is also presented.

The "greening" of Costa Rica: women, peasants, indigenous peoples, and the remaking of nature

THE GREENING OF COSTA RICA: WOMEN, PEASANTS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, AND THE REMAKING OF NATURE Ana Isla Toronto: University of Toronto 2015 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In her book, The Greening of Costa Rica: Women, Peasants, Indigenous Peoples and the Remaking of Nature, Ana Isla elaborates upon the ways in which multi-national organizations have recuperated environmental concerns, and their respective dis-courses, to buttress the expansion of a new type of capitalism. Isla presents a conceptual under-standing of this new form of capital accumulation, greening, which represents a new form of exchange value based on biological forms and processes such as genetics and medicinal plants (bio-products), air and scenery (non-material commons), and water (material commons), which, when facilitated by debt-for-nature, is inserted into many forms of international market relations. She situates the greening of Costa Rica within an historical examination of the creation of the country's debt and the ways in which said debt has lent itself to exploitation of the country's natural and human resources through debt-for-nature exchanges within the discursive paradigm of sustainable development. Isla argues that such exchanges have led to the privatization of biodiversity and commodification of natural elements, the privatization of the forest through the purchase of carbon credits from indebted rainforest-dense countries, the privatization of scenery that has resulted in the exclusion of local peoples from previously shared common spaces, wildlife, and agricultural land, the destruction of spaces and water resources by open-pit mining that has permanently damaged agricultural land and, thus, peasants' subsistence survival, and the creation of a cycle of indebtedness and exploitative working conditions. In particular, Isla highlights the exploitation of women within this context by claiming that socio-economic shifts due to heavy-handed neoliberal policies have resulted in a restructuring of social life such that many peasant women now lacking access to land for subsistence survival have become involved in sex trade work and a medicinal plant economy that has resulted in entrapment in a cycle of debt and exploitation. Here, Isla moves beyond a traditional historical materialist approach to instead adopt an ecofeminist stance. This allows Isla to incorporate the unpaid labour of women peasants in her analysis, and also the embodied and gendered nature of knowledge systems pertaining to such labour. The emphasis on such knowledge systems, particularly insofar as they highlight the interconnected nature of relationships between and among Costa Rica's people and also its complex agricultural and biological ecosystems, for Isla, aids in understanding and combatting the fragmenting and commodifying tendencies, and epistemological groundings, buttressing neoliberal projects. Isla's analysis of the process of greening is intricate and highly informative insofar as it details the interconnected nature of multi-national global economic policies (as well as the involvement of Canadian corporations) and local quotidian realities in isolated and rural areas of Costa Rica. …

Trait-based responses of caddisfly assemblages to the partial channelization of a High-Andean stream

The importance of channel complexity in maintaining biological integrity and ecosystem functioning has been addressed by several researchers. In spite of this, High-Andean streams are being channelized without regard to the effect that channelization might have on stream communities. To attempt to determine these effects, the present study evaluated how caddisfly assemblages respond to channelization in a High-Andean stream. A trait-based approach was used to compare trait-based responses, and the degree of functional homogenization caused by channelization. A total of seven traits are described: (i) ‘Food,’ (ii) ‘Feeding habits,’ (iii) ‘Maximum body size,’ (iv) ‘Adaptation to flow constrains,’ (v) ‘Body flexibility,’ (vi) ‘Case-material,’ and (vii) ‘Case-shape.’ Both the functional structure of the assemblages and the channel complexity of the channelized site were characterized and compared to those of two undisturbed sites. The results suggest that certain genera become dominant as a result of the environmental changes caused by partial channelization. Specifically, assemblages underwent significant specialization in ‘Food,’ ‘Feeding habits,’ and ‘Case-shape,’ and this was linked to the homogenization in mesohabitat type and in hydraulic variability. The trends evident in the trait-based responses may serve as a basis for proposing and assessing strategies to restore the hydromorphological integrity of High-Andean streams.

Business, Innovation, and Knowledge Ecosystems: How They Differ and How to Survive and Thrive within Them

IntroductionThe scope of ecosystem science extends from bounded systems such as watersheds to spatially complex landscapes, even to the Earth itself. Furthermore, research into biological ecosystems crosses temporal scales from seconds to millennia and links together several disciplines of biology. The ecosystem concept dates back to 1930 and, at various times, ecology

Temporal development of coastal ecosystems in the Baltic Sea over the past two decades

Abstract Coastal areas are among the most biologically productive aquatic systems worldwide, but face strong and variable anthropogenic pressures. Few studies have, however, addressed the temporal development of coastal ecosystems in an integrated context. This study represents an assessment of the development over time in 13 coastal ecosystems in the Baltic Sea region during the past two decades. The study covers between two to six trophic levels per system and time-series dating back to the early 1990s. We applied multivariate analyses to assess the temporal development of biological ecosystem components and relate these to potential driving variables associated with changes in climate, hydrology, nutrient status, and fishing pressure. Our results show that structural change often occurred with similar timing in the assessed coastal systems. Moreover, in 10 of the 13 systems, a directional development of the ecosystem components was observed. The variables representing key ecosystem components generally differed across systems, due to natural differences and limitation to available data. As a result of this, the correlation between the temporal development of the biological components in each area and the driving variables assessed was to some extent area-specific. However, change in nutrient status was a common denominator of the variables most often associated with changes in the assessed systems. Our results, additionally, indicate existing strengths as well as future challenges in the capacity of currently available monitoring data to support integrated assessments and the implementation of an integrated ecosystem-based approach to the management of the Baltic Sea coastal ecosystems.

Geochip-based analysis of microbial functional genes diversity in rutile bio-desilication reactor

Biological desilication process is an effective way to remove silicate from rutile so that high purity rutile could be obtained. However, little is known about the molecular mechanism of this process. In this work, a newly developed rutile bio-desilication reactor was applied to enrich rutile from rough rutile concentrate obtained from Nanzhao rutile mine and a comprehensive high through-put functional gene array (GeoChip 4.0) was used to analyze the functional gene diversity, structure and metabolic potential of microbial communities in the biological desilication reactor. The results show that TiO2 grade of the rutile concentrate could increase from 78.21% to above 90% and the recovery rate could reach to 96% or more in 8-12 d. The results also show that almost all the key functional genes involved in the geochemical cycling process, totally 4324 and 4983 functional microorganism genes, are detected in the liquid and ore surface, respectively. There are totally 712 and 831 functional genes involved in nitrogen cycling for liquid and ore surface samples, respectively. The relative abundance of functional genes involved in the phosphorus and sulfur cycling is higher in the ore surface than liquid. These results indicate that nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur cycling are also present in the desiliconization process of rutile. Acetogenesis genes are detected in the liquid and ore surface, which indicates that the desiliconizing process mainly depends on the function of acetic acid and other organic acids. Four silicon transporting genes are also detected in the sample, which proves that the bacteria have the potential to transfer silicon in the molecule level. It is shown that bio-desilication is an effective and environmental-friendly way for enrichment of rough rutile concentrate and presents an overview of functional diversity and structure of desilication microbial communities, which also provides insights into our understanding of metabolic potential in biological desilication reactor ecosystems.

Hydrologically driven ecosystem processes determine the distribution and persistence of ecosystem-specialist predators under climate change.

Climate change has the capacity to alter physical and biological ecosystem processes, jeopardizing the survival of associated species. This is a particular concern in cool, wet northern peatlands that could experience warmer, drier conditions. Here we show that climate, ecosystem processes and food chains combine to influence the population performance of species in British blanket bogs. Our peatland process model accurately predicts water-table depth, which predicts abundance of craneflies (keystone invertebrates), which in turn predicts observed abundances and population persistence of three ecosystem-specialist bird species that feed on craneflies during the breeding season. Climate change projections suggest that falling water tables could cause 56–81% declines in cranefly abundance and, hence, 15–51% reductions in the abundances of these birds by 2051–2080. We conclude that physical (precipitation, temperature and topography), biophysical (evapotranspiration and desiccation of invertebrates) and ecological (food chains) processes combine to determine the distributions and survival of ecosystem-specialist predators.

Biomedical potential of actinobacterially synthesized selenium nanoparticles with special reference to anti-biofilm, anti-oxidant, wound healing, cytotoxic and anti-viral activities

Currently, there is an ever-increasing need to develop environmentally benign processes in place of synthetic protocols. As a result, researchers in the field of nanoparticle synthesis are focusing their attention on microbes from rare biological ecosystems. One potential actinobacterium, Streptomyces minutiscleroticus M10A62 isolated from a magnesite mine had the ability to synthesize selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs), extracellularly. Actinobacteria mediated SeNP synthesis were characterized by UV–visible, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) analysis. The UV-spectral analysis of SeNPs indicated the maximum absorption at 510nm, FT-IR spectral analysis confirms the presence of capping protein, peptide, amine and amide groups. The selenium signals confirm the presence of SeNPs. All the diffraction peaks in the XRD pattern and HR-TEM confirm the size of SeNPs in the range of 10–250nm. Further, the anti-biofilm and antioxidant activity of the SeNPs increased proportionally with rise in concentration, and the test strains reduced to 75% at concentration of 3.2μg. Selenium showed significant anti-proliferative activity against HeLa and HepG2 cell lines. The wound healing activity of SeNPs reveals that 5% selenium oinment heals the excision wound of Wistar rats up to 85% within 18 days compared to the standard ointment. The biosynthesized SeNPs exhibited good antiviral activity against Dengue virus. The present study concludes that extremophilic actinobacterial strain was a novel source for SeNPs with versatile biomedical applications and larger studies are needed to quantify these observed effects of SeNPs.

Co-creating service experience practices

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is threefold: to introduce a practice-based framework designed to integrate and deepen our understanding of how individuals co-create service experience practices; to identify co-creating service experience practices; and to provide a compelling agenda for future research, and offer practical strategies to enhance co-created service experiences. Accordingly, we extend practice theory, building on Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) practice-based framework for markets by integrating Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001).Design/methodology/approach– The authors interpretive analysis draws on naturalistic observations carried out over 18 months, supplemented with 35 interviews (17 with residents, and 18 with staff) and a diary study of nine non-management staff (including nursing staff, kitchen and cleaning staff and administrative staff) at a residential aged care facility.Findings– This paper offers a new conceptualization of service experience. Rather than viewing service experiences as dyadic, designed and produced by the firm for the customer, the authors conceptualize service experience as dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions, thus highlighting the collective, collaborative, evolving and dynamic nature of service experience.Research limitations/implications– Building on McColl-Kennedyet al.’s (2012) foundational work, the authors articulate three distinct types of practices that characterize service experiences. We extend practice theory offering an integrative practice-based framework consistent with our practice-based conceptualization of service experience. Based on the service ecosystem metaphor and drawing parallels and contrasts with an ant colony, the authors provide a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework comprising: representational practices – assimilating, producing and personalizing; normalizing practices – bonding, bridging and linking; and exchange practices – accounting (searching and selecting), evaluating (sorting and assorting), appreciating, classifying (displaying objects and demonstrating collective action, and play (communing and entertaining). Our CSEP framework integrates three theoretical frameworks, that of Kjellberg and Helgesson’s (2006) market practices framework, Holt’s (1995) consumer practices and social capital-based practices (Gittell and Vidal, 1998; Woolcock, 2001), to yield a deeper explanation of co-created service experience practices.Practical implications– It is clear from our observations, interviews with residents and staff, and from the diary study, that customers co-create service experiences in many different ways, each contextually determined. In some cases the customers are well equipped with a wide array of resources, integrated from exchanges with other customers, staff, friends and family and from their own resources. In other cases, however, few resources are integrated from few sources. Importantly, the authors found that some staff are willing and able to offer an extensive range of resources designed to complement the customers’ own resources to help facilitate the service experience. We offer a seven-point practical plan designed to enhance service experiences.Originality/value– The authors work contributes theoretically and practically in four important ways. First, the authors provide a critical analysis of prior service experience conceptualizations. Second, consistent with the conceptualization that service experiences are dynamic, experiential, relational activities and interactions developed with the customer and potentially other actors, including for example, other customers, organizations, and friends and family, we draw parallels and contrasts with a biological ecosystem and offer a co-created service experience practices (CSEP) framework designed to integrate and deepen the understanding of co-created service experiences and extend practice theory. Third, the authors provide managerial implications, including a seven-point practical plan. Finally, the authors offer a research agenda to assist further theory development.

Vocal Ecosystems Beyond Pedagogy: Working With Challenges

Knowledge of vocal improvised music, whether demonstrated by high or low obscure pitch sounds, the beating of the chest while making music sounds, vocal pitch matching or vocal animation with or without the use of technology, has paved the way for a steady stream of vocal artists through the years, each dedicated to vocal exploration. While jazz vocal improvisation appears on the surface to involve few or no rules, it is a form of communication between artist and listener, where the artist adheres to a set of rules or principles. Here the jazz improviser is treated as part of an ecosystem, a concept in the biological sciences that comprises a set of interacting organisms and environments in a particular place. Within the jazz vocal improvisational ecosystem there are various roles, approaches and activities. What follows is a description showing how the analogy with biological ecosystems can be applied to a ‘vocal ecology’, how this viewpoint may also aid the improvising jazz vocalist in artistic expression and considerations for the vocalist with vocal difficulties in communication.

Adverse Effects of Allelopathy from Legume Crops and Its Possible Avoidance

Plant releases many bioactive chemicals from its various parts such as leaves, stem, root and sometimes decomposed body through different mechanism into its surrounding environment. These bioactive chemicals are often termed as allelochemicals because they interact with the surrounding environment. This interaction is either positive or negative. Effects of allelochemicals to the agricultural and biological ecosystem are well documented. In leguminosae family many species are involved in releasing of allelochemicals. Many researchers found that this allelochemicals have both positive and detrimental effects on the successive legume crops. Legume monoculture is common in many parts of the world where they cause a numbers of ecological and economic problems such as decline in crop yield due to soil sickness, regeneration failure and replant problem. These negative effects of allelochemicals open a great concern on allelopathy research. This article reviews the adverse effects of allelochemicals, their extraction and isolation, mechanism inside the plant body. These all are done to find out the possible selection methods of succeeding crops to avoid the allelopathic effects in the next crop of a monoculture farm field. The main purpose of this article is to highlight the adverse allelopathic effects of legume crops to provide ways for sustainable development in agro-ecosystem.

Resiliency characteristics of a competitive and collaborative complex adaptive supply network

This paper investigates the topological and dynamic characteristics of computer manufacturing enterprises needing to operate competitively in a rapidly changing business environment. It studies the evolution of topological structures of the computer manufacturing enterprise ecosystem (CMEE) from a complex adaptive systems (CASs) theory perspective. An agent-based model is built based on the self-organisation and adaptation concepts borrowed from biological ecosystems and agility and alignment concepts from manufacturing systems. It studies the end effect of decisions and actions of enterprise managers and changing trends in the computer manufacturing environment. The results of this research indicate that enterprises, which adjust their goals and infrastructure quickly in response to changes in customer expectations, supplier capabilities, and/or intentions of competitors, survive longer in the CMEE compared to the enterprises that resist change. Surprisingly, the suppliers that deliberately resist changes survive better than the ones that stay neutral to change. Furthermore, enterprises which adopt a cooperative behaviour excel over their greedy competitors.

A computational ecosystem for optimization: review and perspectives for future research

Nature exhibits extremely diverse, dynamic, robust, complex and fascinating phenomena and, since long ago, it has been a great source of inspiration for solving hard and complex problems in computer science. Hence, the search for plausible biologically inspired ideas, models and computational paradigms always drew the interest of computer scientists. It is worth mentioning that most bio-inspired algorithms only focuses on and took inspiration from specific aspects of the natural phenomena. However, in nature, biological systems are interlinked to each other, e.g., biological ecosystems. The ecosystem as a whole can be composed by species that respond to environmental and ecological stimuli. This work reviews the theoretical foundations and applications of a computational ecosystem for optimization, named ECO. Also, as some concepts and processes inherent to biological ecosystems have already been explored in the ECO approach, some related works are described. Finally, several future research directions are pointed.

Comparison of Different Ecosystem Analogies: The Main Economic Determinants and Levels of Impact

The term “ecosystem” is mostly noticed in the science of biology; nonetheless it frequently appears in economy related literature, as well. The following terms can be found throughout particular writings: business ecosystem, entrepreneurship ecosystem, an innovation ecosystem, digital business ecosystem and industrial ecosystem. The aim of this research is to compare these analogies. Every analogy has different actors, its environment and various interactions between them; furthermore every ecosystem is a community of subjects that interact as a complete system. Biological ecosystem analogies have a distinctive effect on their entities and the environment, moreover they have different key determinant affecting the performance of the whole system.

유용미생물을 활용한 창의적 체험활동이 초등학생들의 환경소양에 미치는 영향

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to develop the creative hands-on activities using EM (effective microorganisms) that can enhance the environmental literacy of learners, and to examine the effect of its application. The program was composed of 10 sessions, including biological knowledge and ecosystem status of microorganisms, practical activities that stimulate the environmental behavior and emotion of elementary school students, and career design related to their aptitude and occupation in future. This program can also be connected to the domains of creative hands-on activities, that is, career activities, club activities, self-regulated activities and voluntary service activities. In this study, two classes of 3th grades of elementary school in Seoul were selected and divided into two groups. The experimental group to undergo the program of creative hands-on activities using EM showed higher environmental literacy than the control group. In the concrete, it is proven that this program contributed to the improvement of learners' environmental emotion, skill, and behavior. When interviewed with experimental group, we found that sustained EM hands-on activities were conducted in collaboration with their families, and they became more aware of the utilities of EM and could participate in the activities more interestingly. In conclusion, the creative hands-on activities program was very effective and helped elementary students to change their environmental literacy in positive ways.Key words : effective microorganisms, environmental literacy, creative hands-on activities program

Charting the Innovation Ecosystem

As Victor Hwang noted in an April 2014 article for Forbes , the term ecosystem has become "the next big business buzzword." Hwang's Google Ngrams demonstrate a dramatic increase in the use of the word in phrases like "business ecosystem" and "innovation ecosystem" in the last 10 years. Increasingly, authors, bloggers, and commentators use the term in place of such one-time favorites as network and cluster . The ecosystem- whether it's a business ecosystem, an innovation ecosystem, or a startup ecosystem-shows every sign of becoming the next business fad.Except, Hwang suggests, perhaps this is more than a fad. Perhaps it reflects a fundamental change in the way we think about business in general and innovation specifically. Although some writers use the term interchangeably with other words, ecosystem carries a very different set of connotations and implications than network or cluster . Networks and clusters are constructed; communications run along definable lines and it's mostly clear how activity in one part of the system will affect conditions elsewhere. They may be com plicated- consisting of many different parts and relationships-but they are not especially complex. An ecosystem, in contrast, is a complex, dynamic, emergent system that constantly adapts, sometimes in unexpected ways. As blogger Alastair Brett described it in a March 2014 blog post, ecosystems are "nonlinear complex adaptive systems where the same inputs don't always produce the same outputs, where the behavior of a system is not the sum of its individual parts, where there are disruptions and emergence, and where effects occur in far-from-equilibrium states."Perhaps one reflection of the organic, adaptive nature of the ecosystem is the lack of a single clear definition for "innovation ecosystem." The idea of an ecosystem is, of course, borrowed from biology where, as Deborah Jackson described it in a paper for the National Science Foundation, it refers to "a complex set of relationships among the living resources, habitats, and residents of an area, whose functional goal is to maintain an equilibrium sustaining state." A biological ecosystem is modeled by tracing the energy exchanges across the system, from plant to predator, to prey, and then back to the soil.The use of the ecosystem concept to describe the business environment originated with James Moore, who offered a definition of "business ecosystem" in his 1996 book The Death of Competition . In part, Moore describes a business ecosystem as "an economic community supported by a foundation of intera cting organizations and individuals-the organisms of the business world." In the business ecosystems, companies occupy niches, just as species do in a biological ecosystem, and the various members of the ecosystem co-evolve and tend to align themselves.A plethora of definitions has grown from the application of this basic concept to innovation. For Jackson, an innovation ecosystem is driven by economic dynamics rather than energy exchanges and is comprised of two separate, weakly coupled economies: the knowledge economy and the commercial economy. Erkko Autio and Llewellyn D. W. Thomas survey several definitions in their chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management , each focusing on a slightly different set of characteristics and indicators, as do Susanne Durst and Petro Poutanen in their paper, "Success Factors of Innovation Ecosystems." Taken together, these surveys seem to converge to a particular set of elements that appear in most definitions of the concept: Innovation ecosystems are dynamic, purposive communities with complex, interlocking relationships built on collaboration, trust, and co-creation of value and specializing in exploitation of a shared set of complementary technologies or competencies. Strong innovation ecosystems, according to Autio and Thomas, are productive-they translate knowledge into increased value-and they are robust-resistant to disruption. …