The Central Role of Information Theory in Ecology

Robert E. Ulanowicz ()
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Robert E. Ulanowicz: University of Florida, Department of Biology

Chapter Chapter 7 in Towards an Information Theory of Complex Networks, 2011, pp 153-167 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Information theory (IT) is predicated upon that which largely eludes physics – the absence of something. The capacity for IT to portray both presence and absence in comparable quantitative fashion makes it indispensable to ecology. IT has been applied to ecology along two separate lines: (1) it has been used to quantify the distribution of stocks and numbers of organisms and (2) it has been used to quantify the pattern of interactions of trophic processes. By and large, the first endeavor has resulted in relatively few insights into ecosystem dynamics and has generated much ambiguity and disappointment, so that most ecologists remain highly skeptical about the advisability of applying IT to ecology. By contrast, the second (and less well-known) application has shed light on the possibility that ecosystem behavior is the most palpable example of a purely natural “infodynamics” that transcends classical dynamics, but remains well within the realm of the quantifiable.

Keywords: Ecological networks; Feedback control; Information measures; Robust stabilization; Sensitivity analysis; Sustainability; Theory of organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-0-8176-4904-3_7

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DOI: 10.1007/978-0-8176-4904-3_7

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