Principles of ecology revisited: integrating information and ecological theories for a more unified science

摘要: The persistence of ecological systems in changing environments requires energy, materials, and information. Although the importance information to function has been widely recognized, fundamental principles science as commonly expressed do not reflect this central role processing. We articulate five ecology that integrate with energy material constraints across scales organization living systems. show how these outline new theoretical empirical research challenges, offer one novel attempt incorporate them a model. To provide adequate background for principles, we review major concepts identify common themes key differences theories spanning physics, biology semiotics. structured our around series questions about may play systems: (i) what is information? (ii) related uncertainty? (iii) processing? (iv) does processing link scales? highlight two aspects capture its dual roles: syntactic defining processes encode, filter process stored biological structure semiotic associated structures their context. argue promote unified approach understanding terms first much needed advances unify disciplines scales.