What are the fundamental units in E & E?
Part of the trick to unifying or connecting things is to figure out what the “things” are that can be connected and need connecting. Here I list the elements or “things” that are at the core of ecology and which need connection. We should think of these as the primary state variables of the most distinct subdisciplines:- Ecosystem variables: elements tracked by ecosystem scientists, such as carbon, or nitrogen; these might be described by the mean, variance and dynamics of grams per meter squared.
- Individual physiological rates: elements tracked by physiologists, such as body mass, resting and active metabolic rates, or the fat reserves in migratory songbirds.
- Populations: elements tracked by population and community ecologists, and evolutionary biologists; these might be tracked as the mean and variance and the dynamics of N, the number of individuals.
- Genes: the elements tracked by evolutionary biologists; these tend to be tracked by either copy number, N, or frequency, p.
We can use similar conceptual and mathematical tools and equations to study all of these. Complicating factors are numerous and in many cases shared across subdisciplines. For instance, one could study “disturbance” in any of these subdisciplines, but but it is the consequence of disturbance that is usually of primary interest. The physical landscape is an important factor as well, whether in landscape ecology, metapopulation dynamics, or in niche partitioning. Again, it is the consequence of the landscape more than the landscape itself which is usually of primary interest.
These elements (ecosystem variables, populations and genes) can be and often are linked in classic levels of biological organisation (e.g., cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, etc.). While this is a comfortable approach, it is not the best we can do. This LBO approach requires the instructor to create all the meaning, connection, and disciplinary thinking and structure. Instead, the Core Elements approach reinforces the type of disciplinary thinking of of ecology and evolutionary biology generally.
The primary cross-cutting feature of these elements that scientists tend to study are statics and dynamics, corresponding to pattern and process. For each element type, we can measure a static pattern such as the amounts of carbon in the atmosphere and the oceans, the abundance an invasive species in its introduced range and its native range, or the relative frequency of rare genotypes in the wild. By the same token, we can measure the dynamics or processes of a system, such as the rate of flow of carbon from the atmosphere to the oceans, how metabolic rate varies with body mass, population growth rate of an invasive species, or changes in particular allele frequency in response to El Nino events.
We often equate pattern with description and process with mechanism, but this is a misleading distinction. We can describe patterns and processes, and use either of such descriptions in either hypothesis-generation or hypothesis falsification/confirmation.
