A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE ECO-DARWINIAN PARADIGM

Volume 7, Issue 1, February 2022     |     PP. 1-10      |     PDF (343 K)    |     Pub. Date: January 14, 2022
DOI: 10.54647/biology18175    86 Downloads     5754 Views  

Author(s)

Edmundas Lekevičius, Nature Research Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania

Abstract
Species diversity is supported by trophic specialisation and the variability of environmental conditions in space and time, in other words, it is a form of the division of labour (a);Biodiversity helps to stabilise the functions (essential variables) of individuals, populations, and ecological communities (b);The emergence of biodiversity is determined by heritable variation and the advantage of specialised (more effective) structures over non-specialised ones (c);Biodiversity is characterised by its ability to increase itself and to organise itself during succession and/or evolution into relatively consistent structures, which we call production pyramids and nutrient cycles; in a certain sense, the ‚ontogenesis‘ of communities recapitulates their ‚phylogenesis‘. (d).

Keywords
biodiversity, maintenance, function, origin, evolution, self-organisation, vacant niches

Cite this paper
Edmundas Lekevičius, A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE ECO-DARWINIAN PARADIGM , SCIREA Journal of Biology. Volume 7, Issue 1, February 2022 | PP. 1-10. 10.54647/biology18175

References

[ 1 ] Bagchi R., Gallery R. E., Gripenberg S., Gurr S. J., Narayan L. , et al. 2014. Pathogens and insect herbivores drive rainforest plant diversity and composition. Nature. Vol. 506: 85-88.
[ 2 ] Begon M., Townsend C. R., Harper J. L. 2006. Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems. 4th Ed. Malden, MA, etc.: Blackwell Publ.
[ 3 ] Bell T., Freckleton R. P., Lewis O. T. 2006. Plant pathogens drive density-dependent seedling mortality in a tropical tree. Ecology Letters. Vol. 9: 569–574.
[ 4 ] Ellenberg H. 1974. Zeigerwerte der Gefäßpflanzen Mitteleuropas. Göttingen: Goltze.
[ 5 ] Elton C. 1958. The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. London: Methuen. 
[ 6 ] Carlquist S. 1965. Island Life: A Natural History of the Islands of the World. New York: The Natural History Press.
[ 7 ] Ding  Q., Labandeira C. C., Meng Q., Ren D. 2015. Insect herbivory, plant-host specialization and tissue partitioning on mid-Mesozoic broadleaved conifers of Northeastern China. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoecology. Vol. 440: 259-273.
[ 8 ] Guimarães Jr. P. R, Pires M. M., Marquitti F. M. D., Raimundo R. L. G. 2016. Ecology of mutualisms. In: Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd; 1-9.
[ 9 ] Hågvar S., Ohlson M., Flø D. 2017. Animal successional pathways for about 200 years near a melting glacier: A Norwegian case study. In: D. Godone (Ed.). Glacier Evolution in a Changing World. InTech, DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.68192.
[ 10 ] Hairston N. G., Smith F. E., Slobotkin L. B. 1960. Community structure, population control, and competition. American Naturalist. Vol. 94: 421-425.
[ 11 ] Huang Y., Chen Y., Castro-Izaguirre N., Baruffol M., Brezzi M., et al. 2018. Impacts of species richness on productivity in a large-scale  subtropical forest experiment. Science. Vol. 362: 80–83. 
[ 12 ] Kelly C. K., Bowler M. G. 2002. Coexistence and relative abundance in forest trees. Nature. Vol. 417: 437-440.
[ 13 ] Lekevičius E. 1985. Explanations in biology: An attempt to synthesize functional and causal approaches. In: R. Pavilionis (Ed.). Scientific Knowledge: Systemic Aspect. Vilnius:  The Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR; 119–135 (in Russian).
[ 14 ] Lekevičius E. 1986. Elements of  a General Adaptation Theory. Vilnius: Mokslas Publ. (in Russian).
[ 15 ] Lekevičius E. 2002. The Origin of Ecosystems by Means of Natural Selection. Vilnius: Institute of Ecology Publ.
[ 16 ] Lekevičius E. 2003. Ecosystem evolution:  The major stages and possible mechanisms. Journal of General Biology (Moscow). Vol 64(5): 371-388 (in Russian).
[ 17 ] Lekevičius E. 2009a. Vacant niches in nature, ecology, and evolutionary theory: a mini-review. Ekologija (Vilnius). Vol. 55: 165–174.
[ 18 ] Lekevičius E. 2009b. On some analogies between ecosystem evolution and development of economy: From A. Smith and C. Darwin to the latest ideas. In: L. E. Grinin, A. V. Markov and A. V. Korotaev (Eds.). Evolution: Cosmic, Biological, and Social. Moscow: Librokom; 226–260 (in Russian).
[ 19 ] Lekevičius E. 2011. A review of and some comments on the attempts to construct an overarching theory of ecosystems plasticity. Ekologija (Vilnius). Vol. 57: 137–153.
[ 20 ] Lekevičius E. 2018a. Biodiversity – what for and why? I. In search for a functional explanation. Journal of General Biology (Moscow). Vol. 79: 201-220 (in Russian).
[ 21 ] Lekevičius E. 2018b. Biodiversity – what for and why? II. In search for a synthetic explanation. Journal of General Biology (Moscow). Vol. 79: 221-236 (in Russian).
[ 22 ] Lekevičius E. 2019. Ecological Darwinism or preliminary answers to some crucial though seldom asked questions. In: L. Grinin, A. Korotaev (Eds.). History and Mathematics: Big History Aspects. Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing House; 100–121.
[ 23 ] Lekevičius E., Loreau M. 2012. Adaptability and functional stability in forest ecosystems: A hierarchical conceptual framework. Ekologija (Vilnius). Vol. 58: 391–404.
[ 24 ] Levine J. M., HilleRisLambers J. 2009. The importance of niches for the maintenance of species diversity. Nature. Vol. 461: 254-258.
[ 25 ] Loreau M. 2010. From Populations to Ecosystems: Theoretical Foundations for a New Ecological Synthesis. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
[ 26 ] McIntire E. J. B., Fajardo A. 2014. Facilitation as a ubiquitous driver of biodiversity. New Phytologist. Vol. 201: 403-416.
[ 27 ] Odum E. P. 1969. The strategy of ecosystem development. Science. Vol. 164: 262–270.
[ 28 ] Odum E. P. 1971. Fundamentals of Ecology. 3d Ed. Philadelphia, etc.: W. B. Saunders Co.
[ 29 ] Odum E. P., Barret G. W. 2005. Fundamentals of Ecology. 5th Ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.
[ 30 ] Paine R. T. 2002. Trophic control of production in a rocky intertidal community. Science. Vol. 296: 736–739.
[ 31 ] Pfennig D. W., Pfennig K. S. 2010. Character displacement and the origins of diversity. American Naturalist. Vol. 176 (Suppl 1): S26-S44.
[ 32 ] Pianka E. R. 2000. Evolutionary Ecology. 6th Ed. San Francisco: Benjamin-Cummings.
[ 33 ] Richardson J. L. 1977. Dimensions of Ecology. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Comp.
[ 34 ] Sommer U. 1984. The paradox of the plankton: fluctuations of phosphorus availability maintain diversity of phytoplankton in flow-through cultures. Limnology and Oceanography. Vol. 29: 633–636.
[ 35 ] Taylor L. L., Leake J. R., Quirk J., Hardy K., Banwart S. A., Beerling D. J. 2009. Biological weathering and the long-term carbon cycle: Integrating mycorrhizal evolution and function into the current paradigm. Geobiology. Vol. 7: 171–191. 
[ 36 ] Thornton I. W. 1996. Krakatau: The destruction and reassembly of an island ecosystem. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
[ 37 ] Tilman D. 2004. Niche tradeoffs, neutrality, and community structure: A stochastic theory of resource competition, invasion, and community assembly. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Vol. 101: 10854-10861.
[ 38 ] Tilman D., Reich P. B., Knops J., Wedin D. A., Mielke T., Lehman C. 2001. Diversity and productivity in a long – term grassland experiment. Science. Vol. 294: 843-845.
[ 39 ] Whittaker R. H. 1975. Communities and Ecosystems. 2nd Ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
[ 40 ] Wilson E. O., Eisner T., Briggs W. R., Dickerson R. E., Metzenberg R. L. et al. 1973. Life on Earth. 1st Ed. Stamford: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
[ 41 ] Ziegler A. C. 2002. Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.