We Are An Ecosystem

Opinion: (Fritjof Capra, PhD physics): The standard definition that is most often used was given by Lester Brown, the founder of the World Watch Institute, in the early 1980s. He wrote that a sustainable society is one that can fulfill its needs without diminishing the chances of future generations.” Sustainable human societies can be built on the example of natural ecosystems, which represent sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Capra’s six principles of ecology:

Networks

All living things in an ecosystem are interconnected through networks of relationship. They depend on this web of life to survive. For example: In a garden, a network of pollinators promotes genetic diversity; plants, in turn, provide nectar and pollen to the pollinators.

Nested Systems

Nature is made up of systems that are nested within systems. Each individual system is an integrated whole and — at the same time — part of larger systems. Changes within a system can affect the sustainability of the systems that are nested within it as well as the larger systems in which it exists. For example: Cells are nested within organs within organisms within ecosystems.

Cycles

Members of an ecological community depend on the exchange of resources in continual cycles. Cycles within an ecosystem intersect with larger regional and global cycles. For example: Water cycles through a garden and is also part of the global water cycle.

Flows

Each organism needs a continual flow of energy to stay alive. The constant flow of energy from the sun to Earth sustains life and drives most ecological cycles. For example: Energy flows through a food web when a plant converts the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, a mouse eats the plant, a snake eats the mouse, and a hawk eats the snake. In each transfer, some energy is lost as heat, requiring an ongoing energy flow into the system.

Development

All life — from individual organisms to species to ecosystems — changes over time. Individuals develop and learn, species adapt and evolve, and organisms in ecosystems coevolve. For example: Hummingbirds and honeysuckle flowers have developed in ways that benefit each other; the hummingbird’s color vision and slender bill coincide with the colors and shapes of the flowers.

Dynamic Balance

Ecological communities act as feedback loops, so that the community maintains a relatively steady state that also has continual fluctuations. This dynamic balance provides resiliency in the face of ecosystem change. For example: Ladybugs in a garden eat aphids. When the aphid population falls, some ladybugs die off, which permits the aphid population to rise again, which supports more ladybugs. The populations of the individual species rise and fall, but balance within the system allows them to thrive together.
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2 Comments

  1. The definition “…a sustainable society is one that can fulfill its needs without diminishing the chances of future generations” is interesting. Humanity is currently all operating in direct opposition to this. We can talk about things like economic crisis all day long but it should always lead back to that quote.

    The way which humanity lives is unsustainable. Predictions for the end of the century have temperatures perhaps rising 29%. Population predictions for the year 2050 have humans reaching 9.6 billion. Oil is running out, causing escalating global warming, and no other alternatives for it seem feasible with the amount of demand that exists.

    So the question is: is humanity finished as a species? It seems the knee jerk is to say definitely not but if we don’t drastically change the way that all of civilization is structured then humanity will not be able to continue functioning. And not to mention the rest of the world as a whole due to our actions…

  2. What a wonderful article! Scientific, true, and beautifully wholly

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