This is a response to my autopoietic forest posts sent to me by Jacob Dyer. He said I could share it with the group, I think I should so here it is below.
Gary Gary A. Beluzo Professor of Environmental Science Division of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Holyoke Community College 303 Homestead Avenue Holyoke, MA 01040 [email protected] 413 552-2445 Begin forwarded message: > Dear Gary, > > I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your posts (and Lee's as well) > regarding forest ecosystems. I am currently a research assistant > working at Purdue University with Dr. Michael Saunders (Hardwood > Silviculture) and will be transferring in a few months to work with > Drs. Tony D'Amato and John Bradford at University of Minnesota. This > discussion thread has brought up many points that I hope to be > researching as part of my Ph.D. studies - namely, how does the level > of complexity in the system influence resilience and resistance to > climate change. I won't get into the details about my potential > studies (afterall, I am still 10 months out from starting), however, > this brings up a good point about how we view forest, and for that > matter, science. There really needs to be a shift in our perspective > in deciphering the system from a deterministic, reductionist > standpoint to a more dynamic, systems (i.e. relational) standpoint. > Forest are complex adaptive systems, and to view them as the sum or > their parts is totally incorrect (see Puettmann et al. 2009). As Lee > pointed out, his coming to grips with the neighborhood concept of > forest stand dynamics really starts to peg this down. We just need > to realize that spatial and temporal scales are fairly tightly > coupled. I was thinking about this earlier, and if we want to look > at the resilience of a system on the order of days, we need to think > in terms of small spatial scales and fast processes (undoubtedly > these processes will have a limited extent in the effect - although, > if we accept quantum theory, that can change a lot of this). > Likewise, if we want to observe phenomena at large scales, we need > to think on longer time scales - it may take some processes many > millenia to play out over very large areas. Addtionally, we need to > incorporate system memory into all of these relationships - both at > the small, short scale and the large, long scale. I am just curious > what you think about all of this, in terms of using systemics to > think about forests. I personally think we would be fools not to be > using this approach in the future of our research endeavours. > > Anyhow, my mind was really spinning after reading the posts and I > needed to get this down. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. > Feel free to share this with the ENTS group if you see the value in > doing so. > > Have a great weekend! > > Jacob H. Dyer > > > Jacob H. Dyer, Research Assistant > Department of Forestry and Natural Resources > Purdue University > G068 Pfendler Hall > 715 W. State Street > West Lafayette, IN 47907-2061 > Cell: 608-669-1355 > Fax: 765-494-9461 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
