Energy flows in complex ecological systems: a review

Jiang, Zhang

doi:10.1007/s11424-009-9169-3

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Another possible explanation is that self-similar transportation networks may exist widely in organisms, cities and countries [10,13,27]. Supply networks such as traffic networks and electricity grids resembling the vascular networks in organisms determine the power law relations between size of cities or countries and energy consumption [13,34]. However, we find it is week to explain other ubiquitous allometric scaling relations, such as population and GDP, where the transportation networks are hard to be found.…”

Section: Similarities and Differences Between Cities And Countriesmentioning

confidence: 82%

Allometric scaling of countries

Zhang¹,

Yu²

2010

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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As huge complex systems consisting of geographic regions, natural resources, people and economic entities, countries follow the allometric scaling law which is ubiquitous in ecological, urban systems. We systematically investigated the allometric scaling relationships between a large number of macroscopic properties and geographic (area), demographic (population) and economic (GDP, gross domestic production) sizes of countries respectively. We found that most of the economic, trade, energy consumption, communication related properties have significant super-linear (the exponent is larger than 1) or nearly linear allometric scaling relations with GDP. Meanwhile, the geographic (arable area, natural resources, etc.), demographic(labor force, military age population, etc.) and transportation-related properties (road length, airports) have significant and sub-linear (the exponent is smaller than 1) allometric scaling relations with area. Several differences of power law relations with respect to population between countries and cities were pointed out. Firstly, population increases sub-linearly with area in countries. Secondly, GDP increases linearly in countries but not super-linearly as in cities. Finally, electricity or oil consumptions per capita increases with population faster than cities.

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Section: Similarities and Differences Between Cities And Countriesmentioning

confidence: 82%

Allometric scaling of countries

Zhang¹,

Yu²

2010

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

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“…RT theory may help explain how rates or patterns of energy flow through food webs vary with community or ecosystem size. Food webs can be modelled as "energy transportation networks" [246][247][248]. By doing so, it is possible to calculate power functions describing relationships between various energy-flux parameters (e.g., energy-flux variability and energy-storage ability) and the size of the network [248].…”

Section: Resource Transport (Rt) Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabolic Scaling in Complex Living Systems

Glazier

2014

Systems

153

397

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In this review I show that four major kinds of theoretical approaches have been used to explain the scaling of metabolic rate in cells, organisms and groups of organisms in relation to system size. They include models focusing on surface-area related fluxes of resources and wastes (including heat), internal resource transport, system composition, and various processes affecting resource demand, all of which have been discussed extensively for nearly a century or more. I argue that, although each of these theoretical approaches has been applied to multiple levels of biological organization, none of them alone can fully explain the rich diversity of metabolic scaling relationships, including scaling exponents (log-log slopes) that vary from ~0 to >1. Furthermore, I demonstrate how a synthetic theory of metabolic scaling can be constructed by including the context-dependent action of each of the above modal effects. This "contextual multimodal theory" (CMT) posits that various modulating factors (including metabolic level, surface permeability, body shape, modes of thermoregulation and resource-transport, and other internal and external influences) affect the mechanistic expression of each theoretical module. By involving the contingent operation of several mechanisms, the "meta-mechanistic" CMT differs from most metabolic scaling theories that are deterministically mechanistic. The CMT embraces a systems view of life, and as such recognizes the open, dynamic nature and complex hierarchical and interactive organization of biological systems, and the importance of multiple (upward, downward and reciprocal) causation, biological regulation of resource supply and demand and their interaction, and contingent internal (system) and external (environmental) influences on metabolic scaling, all of which are discussed. I hope that my heuristic attempt at building a unifying theory of metabolic scaling will not only stimulate further testing of all of the various subtheories composing it, but also foster an appreciation that many current models are, at least in part, complementary or even synergistic, rather than antagonistic. Further exploration about how the scaling of the rates of metabolism

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“…The structure of the communities can, in turn, be described as networks of energy flows whose nodes are groups of species exploiting a certain type of resources (i.e. trophic guilds) (Zhang 2009, Moore and De Ruiter 2012). Within a complex systems framework, the state variables describing the trophic community are the amount of energy processed by all individuals within each guild.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biogeography of bird and mammal trophic structures

Mendoza

Araújo

2022

Ecography

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Does climate determine the trophic organization of communities around the world? A recent study showed that a limited number of community trophic structures emerge when co-occurrence of trophic guilds among large mammals is examined globally. We ask whether the pattern is general across all terrestrial mammals (n = 5272) and birds (n = 9993). We found that the six community-trophic structures previously identified with large mammals are largely maintained when all mammals and birds are examined, both together and separately, and that bioclimatic variables, including net primary productivity (NPP), are strongly related to variation in the geographical boundaries of community trophic structures. We argue that results are consistent with the view that trophic communities are self-organized structures optimizing energy flows, and that climate likely acts as the main control parameter by modulating the amount of solar energy available for conversion by plants and percolated through food webs across trophic communities. Gradual changes in climate parameters would thus be expected to trigger abrupt changes in energy flows resulting from phase transitions (tipping points) between different dynamical stable states. We expect future research to examine if our results are general across organisms, ecosystems, scales and methodologies, and whether inferences rooted in complex systems theory are supported. The emergence of general patterns in the functional properties of animal communities at broad scales supports the emergence of food-web biogeography as a sub-discipline of biogeography focused on the analysis of the geographical distributions of trophic relationships among organisms.

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Energy flows in complex ecological systems: a review

Cited by 9 publications

References 64 publications

Allometric scaling of countries

Allometric scaling of countries

Metabolic Scaling in Complex Living Systems

Biogeography of bird and mammal trophic structures

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