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Function in ecology: an organizational approach

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Abstract

Functional language is ubiquitous in ecology, mainly in the researches about biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, it has not been adequately investigated by ecologists or philosophers of ecology. In the contemporary philosophy of ecology we can recognize a kind of implicit consensus about this issue: while the etiological approaches cannot offer a good concept of function in ecology, Cummins’ systemic approach can. Here we propose to go beyond this implicit consensus, because we think these approaches are not adequate for ecology. We argue that a sound epistemological framework to function in ecology is to be found in organizational approaches. In this line, we define function in ecology as a precise effect of a given constraint on the ecosystem flow of matter and energy performed by a given item of biodiversity, within a closure of constraints. We elaborate on this definition by developing a case study of a bromeliad ecosystem.

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Notes

  1. We cannot elaborate too much about the issue of the use of function by ecologists here. We have done this in another paper, which we recommend to the interested reader (see Nunes-Neto et al. 2013).

  2. We must notice that there is a problem in assuming that biodiversity (which corresponds to variety) is the functional entity: variety is something inferred (an unobservable) from the observation of the entities that vary and, as a consequence, its status as a cause can be put into question. The same does not seem to happen in the case of the components of biodiversity, which are observable entities.

  3. The changes caused by these factors can be seen as functional, but only through a non-historical perspective, such as Cummins’ (1998[1975]). They cannot be functional from an etiological perspective. Anyway, the central point here is that the origin and spread of traits can happen because of other evolutionary factors, not only selection (Cummins 2002; Nunes-Neto and El-Hani 2011). Then, since the traits originate and spread not only by natural selection, we cannot appeal always to the etiological function as an explanation.

  4. Other examples can be find in Mars’ cycle of CO2 (Centler and Dittrich 2007) or in Titan’s cycle of methane (Lunine and Hörst 2011).

  5. It is important to build a distinction concerning two possible ways of understanding constraint, which are related to the hierarchical frame into which they are embedded: (1) in a nested hierarchy, constraint is a whole-part relationship: it is a restriction of the whole system organization on the component parts of the system and (2) in a control hierarchy, constraint is a restriction from higher-level entities on lower-level ones, but the higher-level entities do not necessarily contain the lower-level ones. The general framework and the case presented here follow this second interpretation of constraint, although it could also be further interpreted according to the first one.

  6. Our definition here converges with the theoretical perspective of O'Neill et al. (1986), Allen and Hoekstra (1992) and Ulanowicz (2000). However, in spite of this convergence, we should point that, these authors did not explicitly intend to develop an approach to function for ecology, and much less they take into account the concept of organizational closure of constraints, which is crucial in ecological systems, in our understanding.

  7. Nevertheless, we think that our approach can account also for the flow of energy in the ecosystem. We think, however, that to consider the energy now would make our analysis much more complicated.

  8. For the heterogeneity of ecological entities that can be functional see, for instance, Díaz and Cabido (2001), Lavorel and Garnier (2002), Nadrowski et al. (2010), Mace et al. (2012) and Cardinale et al. (2012).

  9. Notice that in our approach, these factors are not functions, but can be interpreted instead as limiting factors. This is a restriction of the domain of functional language in ecology that seems necessary to exclude cases like the following: “the altitude difference caused by hills functions to create divergent communities of animals and plants”.

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Acknowledgments

Nei Nunes-Neto acknowledges to CAPES (Ministry of Education of Brazil) for a PDSE Grant (No. 6084/11-7) and to the Information and Autonomous System Research Group (University of Basque Country) for all the support to the realization of this work. Alvaro Moreno acknowledges the aid of the Research Project IT 505-10 of the Gobierno Vasco and FFU2009-12895-CO2-02 and FFI2011-25665 of the Spanish Ministerio de Economıa y Competitividad. Charbel N. El-Hani thanks the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for a productivity research Grant (No. 301259/2010-0) and both CNPq and the Research Support Foundation of the State of Bahia (FAPESB) for research funding (Project PNX0016_2009). We are indebted to Sergio Martinez and Maximiliano Martinez for thoughtful discussions of a previous version of the paper. Finally, we acknowledge an anonymous reviewer and Kim Sterelny for their valuable comments, which helped to significantly improve the paper.

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  1. History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching Laboratory, Department of General Biology, Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Rua Barão de Jeremoabo, s/n, Campus Universitário de Ondina, Salvador, 40170-115, Brazil

    Nei Nunes-Neto & Charbel N. El-Hani

  2. IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Avda. Tolosa 70, 20080, San Sebastián, Spain

    Alvaro Moreno

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  1. Nei Nunes-Neto
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Correspondence to Nei Nunes-Neto.

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Nunes-Neto, N., Moreno, A. & El-Hani, C.N. Function in ecology: an organizational approach. Biol Philos 29, 123–141 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-013-9398-7

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