Abstract
Ecologists have hypothesized for many years that the evolution of biological systems is driven by fundamental principles or forces. Lotka [1], for example, argued, “The first effect of natural selection thus operating upon competing species will be to give relative preponderence … to those most efficient in guiding available energy … The result … is not a mere diversion of the energy flux through the system of organic nature along a new path, but an increase of the total flux through that system … This may be expressed by saying that natural selection tends to make the energy flux through the system a maximum, so far as compatible with the constraints to which the system is subject.”
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Laws, E.A. (2003). Maximum Resiliency as a Determinant of Food Web Behavior. In: Nation, J., Trofimova, I., Rand, J.D., Sulis, W. (eds) Formal Descriptions of Developing Systems. NATO Science Series, vol 121. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0064-2_3
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