Endorheic currents in ecology: an example of the effects from scientific specialization and interdisciplinary isolation

ABSTRACT

Mainstream ecological thought is explored in three sections: (i) Epistemological traits. Given the typical scientific development and the necessity of preserving our intellectual heritage, the conservatism outlined in (i) is cyclical, so its stages are graphically summarized. (ii) Methodological benchmarks antithetically derived from (i), in order to get faster advancement consistent with the growing environmental challenges which spur ecological development. (iii) The renaissance of an old paradigm. This section exposes the misunderstanding of the physical concept of equilibrium by the mainstream ecological thought; this explains its current state. Consequently, section (iii) also summarizes the evolution of a recent set of proposals (organic biophysics of ecosystems) that rescues the foundational paradigm of ecosystem ecology based on physics, neglected by the mainstream thought before producing its most valuable results. We highlight that the main problems emerge from the weakness of integration between ecology, physics and epistemology, and spurious links between ecology and neoclassical economics.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecology
• ecological state equation
• organic biophysics of ecosystems
• epistemology
• evolution of science
• interdisciplinary research
• physics
• scientific specialization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rodrigo Riera (PhD in marine invertebrate ecology), is the Head of Development and Research Dept. of C.I.M.A. S.L., in Sta. Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. His interests are (i) the human perturbations on marine coastal ecosystems, and (ii) the study of global diversity of fish and invertebrates from coastal ecosystems, mainly temperate reefs.

Ricardo A. Rodríguez BSc in Biology; MSc in Didactic of Science; PhD in Ecosystem Ecology; PhD in Development Economics; 17 years of teaching experience in several disciplines. His interest is to develop reliable approaches to unify several fields of science that seem disconnected from each other at the first glance. Dr Rodríguez is the founder of organic biophysics of ecosystems (OBEC).

Juan D. Delgado (PhD): since 2008 he is associate professor of Ecology at the Physical, Chemical and Natural Systems, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain. He has also done research and teaching activity in benthic ecology and zoology, biological invasions, and effects of human impacts (mainly road systems) on ecosystems, and was previously at the Applied Physics and Ecology areas at University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.

Ada M^a. Herrera (BSc in Biology, with specialization in ecosystem ecology; PhD in Biomedicine) has researched in the improvement of anti-inflammatory activity of non-steroidal drugs at the University Hospital of the Canary Islands. She has published in JCR journals in the above-mentioned issue, simultaneously to her activity as an independent researcher in ecosystem ecology.

Brian D. Fath (PhD): Professor, Department of Biological Sciences at Towson University (USA) and Research Scholar in the Advanced Systems Analysis Program, IIASA (Austria). Currently, Editor in Chief Ecological Modelling Journal, Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics Focus Research Group in CSDMS, and President, North American Chapter of the International Society for Ecological Modelling. The research goal of Dr Fath is to contribute to a science of sustainability, which he addresses by using thermodynamics, network analysis, information and complexity theory.

ORCID

Ricardo A. Rodríguez http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2752-005X

Ada M. Herrera http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5106-822X

Notes

1 Conventional ecosystem biophysics deals with the influence of inanimate or lifeless physical factors (e.g. light, temperature, ionizing radiation, movement of isotopes in food webs) on ecological systems. Contrastingly, OBEC does not take into account either of these factors, but only the dynamics of living (organic) creatures that are analysed as if they would be indivisible physical particles in constant movement at the population scale within the ecosystem space. This explains the necessity of introducing the adjective ‘organic’ at the beginning of the term.

2 After all, Newtonian mechanics was universally accepted when its primordial astronomical dimension was empirically based on observations from only 1 moon and 6 planets.