Actually in ecology we don't so much use laws as principles, as Kent
indicates. Although Conservation of Energy is considered a law in physics,
its use in ecology is really that we try to construct budgets and follow
energy and nutrients through the system.
Gauss' Principle of Competitive Exclusion illustrates an important
difference between physics and ecology. Its use in ecology has suffered
because of the criticism by Rob Peters that it is a tautology, but this
would not faze a physicist, for whom the value of a law or principle depends
on whether it is useful - and since the Competitive Exclusion Principle is
useful, there would be no need for controversy, and niche theory would have
a more significant role.
An example of a principle rather than a law dates back to my early work on
gelatinous zooplankton, which many marine ecologists consider a dead end in
the food chain. For me a basic principle is that if you leave food on the
table, someone will eat it. It may take a million years to learn how, but
someone will eat it. So my colleagues grudgingly granted that yes,
leatherback turtles eat jellyfish, as do Mola molas, but that is an
insignificant exception. But then more and more scientists started to tell
me anecdotes about finding examples of predation on jellies, such as doing
stomach content analysis on fish and finding just slime, but then realising
that their hands were numb - presumably the fish had been eating jellies and
the nematocysts were still active. So the principle led to knowledge, which
is a useful result, although I would not call this a Law of Nature (even
though it is #3 on Kent's list).
Turning to a broader picture, Complex Systems theorists have observed that
there are some very general patterns in nature that seem to indicate an
underlying universal structure. Vague rules such as 10% of the population
has 90% of the wealth, 10% of streams carry 90% of water, 10% of the
organisms compose 90% of the biomass, and so on, suggest that this is not
just a coincidence. These patterns are very speculative, and many ecologists
feel that speculation is unscientific, and therefore bad - no, not just bad,
downright evil! I think that this holds back the development of ecological
theory. By comparison, physicists love to speculate. The neutrino and the
quark were hypothesized many decades before either was experimentally
detected. The existence of helium was inferred from looking at the solar
spectrum before it was actually found on earth. If only we could be that
imaginative!
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jensen, Kent" <[email protected]>
To: "Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news"
<[email protected]>; "William Silvert" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 11:08 PM
Subject: RE: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology Laws and Speculations
I'll have to remember that one indeed! For our general (non-majors) Ecology
& Environmental Conservation course we try to drive home 4 points that I
think have been introduced many places as basic laws of ecology...
1. There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
2. Mother Mature Knows Best
3. Everything Has to Go Somewhere
4. Everything is Connected to Everything Else
As far as I know, ecologists are pretty much in agreement on them! And,
perhaps an example of the Law of Ecological Resistance could be in a subset
under #1. !
K. C. Jensen, Ph.D.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of William Silvert
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 4:44 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology Laws and Speculations
There are no "laws" that ecologists won't criticise. As I have pointed out
in previous postings, some even object to the idea that conservation of
energy applies to living creatures.
If laws are found, ecologists will reject them. That is my law of ecological
resistance.
Bill Silvert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wayne Tyson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 12:06 AM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Ecology Laws and Speculations
Ecolog:
What are the "laws" of ecology, as in physics, and where are the tests that
validate them as opposed to having "different schools of speculation?"
WT
