Hello Ted and all:I have put it this way: "Organisms do what they can when they can, where they can." Virtually no one has refuted it, and virtually no one has affirmed it. I even tried to rattle some cages by saying that it was a "Law" (or at least an axiom) of biology/ecology; still no objections, just a deafening silence. No buzz. Not even from one of the top ecologists.
I do take you seriously, Ted, but what you are suggesting, letting one's intuition go, is so "counterintuitive" that it seems an absurdity to those who believe that that buzz can be reduced to numbers and that the metamath that runs everything can't be trusted.
We have laid down a couple of gauntlets, Ted, and may well be burned at the stake--or politely ignored.
WT----- Original Message ----- From: "Ted Mosquin" <tedmosq...@gmail.com>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:28 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Visualizing functional diversity Hello all, Here is the way I understand the meaning of 'functional diversity'. No endless statistics or fuzzy math required to muddy the explanation even more. The essential question is: what do organisms (individually and collectively) actually do within their ecosystems to enable the world to have become the way it is? Let me count the ways.......(Table 3 in the URL below). We humans find ourselves living in a great big never-ending self organizing buzz out there no matter where one goes on this planet. The buzz has been going on since the beginning of time. One has to try to bear in mind that we are processes, that is we are verbs and not nouns (except in micro-moments in time). This is an alternative to fuzzy math and stats -- just go out there, take a deep breath and be the participant that you are. http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/MosqEcoFun5.html Ted Mosquin On 9/29/2012 9:30 AM, Nicolas PERU wrote:
I'm also a proponent of the application of fuzzy thinking and fuzzy set mathematics to ecology. Clearly, binary thinking should be avoided in ecology because very little (none ?) ecosytems parts obey black/white rules like human beings like to apply on anything. Classifications are a necessity for human being but not for natural elements. I think that if we really want to evaluate ecosystem functioning we must recognize and take into account in our mathematical measures the fuzziness of Nature. Binary categorization (like some biological traits) should be applied at the end of our calculus processes.NicolasLe Sat, 29 Sep 2012 06:55:58 +0200, Wayne Tyson <landr...@cox.net> a écrit:I tend to be even fuzzier-- Fuzzy Philosophy: A Foundation for Interneted Ecology? This became my retirement talk at the SERCAL annual meeting.WT ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicolas PERU" <nicolas.p...@univ-lyon1.fr> To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> Sent: Friday, September 28, 2012 12:57 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Visualizing functional diversity Dear Wayne, In my point of viewn, ecosystem functions directly refer to how energy flows are shaped through ecosystem and how they allow ecosystem tomaintain by themselves (without human intervention this time). So, when wemeasure a functional diversity we try to evaluate the number of different ways a given energy flow can be realized. One aim is to link living communities diversities to ecosystem functioning (energy flow) and so define how organisms participate to the success of energy transfer. This is a quite fuzzy and very general definition but I hope this helps. Regards, NicolasLe Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:43:00 +0200, Wayne Tyson <landr...@cox.net> a écrit:Thanks, Juan; I do appreciate the reference, but I am looking for a simper answer than that--a scientifically-based explanation of what ecosystem function means as an actual or theoretical feature of actual ecosystems. I am definitely not interested in ". . . an anthropocentric concept (as humans depend on ecosystems to survive) because is described as the capacity of the natural processes to provide an array of direct or indirect services or benefits to humans." I would be delighted to hear a discussion of benefits to humans some other time, however, but I do not want this discussion to wander off the central, very basic question now. WT ----- Original Message ----- From: Juan Alvez To: Wayne Tyson Cc: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 10:25 AM Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Visualizing functional diversity Hi Wayne, You can best visualize ecosystem functions in a paper written 10 years ago by De Groot and others, (Ref: de Groot, R.S., Wilson, M.A., Boumans, R.M.J., 2002. A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services. Ecological Economics 41, 393-408.). It describes four main ecosystem functions (regulation [climate, nutrient cycling, polination], habitat [refugia, nursery, etc.], information [scientific info, recreation, cultural and aesthetic] and production [food, genetic and medicinal resources, raw materials, etc.] functions). It is certainly an anthropocentric concept (as humans depend on ecosystems to survive) because is described as the capacity of the natural processes to provide an array of direct or indirect services or benefits to humans. Best, Juan On 9/26/2012 10:11 PM, Wayne Tyson wrote: Please describe function in ecosystems. WT ----- Original Message ----- From: "Katharine Miller" <kmill...@alaska.edu> To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU> Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 4:07 PM Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Visualizing functional diversity Hello, I have used Rao's quadratic entropy to evaluate functional diversity between a number of estuaries for which I also have a GIS database. I would like to be able to visualize which sites are more functionally similar across the region to evaluate patterns in dispersal, etc. I know it is possible to use the pairwise functional beta diversity values as a distance matrix in a Mantel test or multivariate regression on distances matrices (MRM) when comparing functional diversity to, for example, environmental data. Would it also be appropriate to use these values in a PAM or other clustering method to identify estuaries that are more/less similar in functional diversity? This is likely to sound like a very naive question, but I have done an extensive literature search and have not found where this has been done before - perhaps because it is a bad idea for other reasons? Any insights and/or references on this approach would be greatly appreciated. Thank you ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1427 / Virus Database: 2441/5293 - Release Date: 09/26/12
----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1427 / Virus Database: 2441/5300 - Release Date: 09/30/12