3 Ecosystems have ontic openness “ next to music and art, science is the greatest, most beautiful and most enlightening achievement of the human spirit” (Popper, 1990) 3.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter’s title may mean little to many persons, yet the essence may be understood fairly easily on an intuitive basis. The adjective “ontic”, which hardly appears in any dic- tionary, clearly relates to the term ontology, which is used in philosophy in its widest sense to designate “the way we view the world and how it is composed”. Ontic bears the slight difference that it refers to intrinsic properties of the world as we construct it and its behavior, such that it addresses phenomenology as well. Therefore, this chapter comple- ments the concepts of thermodynamic openness addressed in the previous chapter, by including the physical openness available to ecosystem development. In fact, everybody knows something about openness. We know how it is to be open to another person’s opinions, to be open minded, or open to new experiences. We enjoy that surprising things may happen on our (field) trips and journeys (in nature). In fact, any person who has tried to plan exact details for a tour into the wilderness will know how difficult this is. First, we may address the aspect of realizing such a trip and stress that this also implies the acceptance of the fact that unexpected things may or rather will occur. But, second, we have also to address the fact that once an event occurs, it is an out- come of many unexpected events. It is impossible to predict which one and how often such events actually occur. We may expect to bring extra dry socks to use after one inci- dent, an unexpected event. How many persons will be able to foresee exactly how many pairs to bring? Or in other cases we may return with unused socks but found that we needed extra shirts instead. Any of us will know that it is eventually not possible to make such a detailed plan. In fact, one could have chosen another title to the present chapter: “anything may— but does not—happen”. Of which the first part deals with, as we shall see in the follow- ing sections, the enormous number of possibilities that exist in general and also in biological systems. The second part indicates that all possibilities have not been realized, partly because it is not physically possible, and partly due to constraints that are described in other chapters of this book. This chapter is about the ontic openness of ecosystems. It relates directly to the theme of this book and the systemness of ecosystems because ontic openness results, in part, due to the complex web of life constantly combining, interacting, and rearranging, in the 35 Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 35 36 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective natural world to form novel patterns. Furthermore, ontic openness is at least a partial cause of indeterminacy and uncertainty in ecology and thus the reason that we are not able to make exact predictions or measurements with such a high accuracy as for instance in physical experiments. Therefore, when understanding ecosystems from a systems per- spective, one cannot overlook the importance of physical openness. 3.2 WHY IS ONTIC OPENNESS SO OBSCURE? While referring to Section 3.2 of the chapter we have already mentioned that it likely will pose a question to the vast majority of readers, not only the ecologically oriented ones, of: what is the meaning of the title of this chapter? We have tried to foresee this question already by giving a first vague and intuitive explanation. We guess it is likely that only a few readers have met this “phenomenon” before as far as the term ontic openness is con- cerned. We also expect that very few, if any, of the readers are familiar with texts that deal with the role of ontic openness in an ecological context. To our knowledge, no such thorough treatment of this topic exists. Rather a number of treatments of more or less philosophical character exist—all of which may be taken into account—and which all together may add up to a composite understanding of what ontic openness may mean and what its importance and consequences to ecological sci- ence may be. Should we attempt to further explain ontic openness very briefly (which is impossi- ble) we would start with openness, and turn the attention to another related word like open-minded. We normally use this word to designate a person that is willing to try out new things, accept novel ideas, maybe a visionary person who is able to think that the world could be different, that matters may be interdependent in other ways than in which we normally think. Many scientists make their breakthrough thanks to such mental openness. Discoveries are often unexpected or unplanned—a phenomenon known in the philosophy of science as serendipities. Kuhn also addresses this issue of the scientific procedure when he stresses that paradigm shifts in the evolution of science involves the scientists to come and look at the same object from a different angle or in a different manner. We now would like, if possible, to remove the psychology element. If we remove the role of subjectivity, i.e., that openness relies on one or more person’s ability or willing- ness to see that the surrounding world may be different or could have other possibilities realized than hitherto, then we are really on the right track. We are now left with an objective part of openness. If we can now accept the physical existence of this and that it is a property that penetrates everything, we are getting there. The openness is an objectively existing feature not only of the world surrounding us but also ourselves and our physical lives (e.g., biochemical individuality introduced by Williams, 1998). This is the ontic part of the openness. Another reason for ontic openness to be not so commonly known among biologist and ecologist is the fact that the progenitors of this concept were dominantly physicists and in particular those in the hard-core areas of quantum mechanics, particle physics, and rel- ativity theory. Furthermore, we typically do not view these areas as being directly relevant Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 36 to biology or ecology. Also, these theories are not easy to communicate to “outsiders”, so even if ecology is considered to be a highly trans-, inter-, and multi-disciplinary science it is perfectly understandable that no one has thought that these hard-core sub-disciplines of physics today could possibly have a message for ecology. Luckily, one might say, some of the physicists from these areas turned their attention in other directions and started speculating about the consequences of their findings to other areas of natural science such as biology. On several occasions we have found physi- cists wondering about the distinction between the physical systems and living systems, such as Schrödinger’s What is life. Living systems are composed of basically the same units, atoms and molecules, and yet they are so different. One physicist, Walter Elsasser, will receive an extra attention in this chapter. Studying his works, in particular from the later part of his productive career, may turn out to be a gold mine of revelations to any person interested in how biology differs from physics and about life itself. Still not understood or got the idea of what ontic openness is about? Do not worry— you most probably have experienced it and its consequences already. Let us investigate some well-known examples. Most ecologists have experienced ontic openness already! Most ecologists will have met ontic openness already—somewhat in disguise—as often our background comes from the gathering of empirical knowledge, an experience we may have achieved through hard fieldwork. To start, let us consider a hypothetical “test ecologist”. Given the information about latitude and a rough characteristic ecosystem type—terrestrial or aquatic—she will be able to decide whether she is expert “enough” in the area to forecast the system state or if she prefers to enlist aid from a person considered to be more knowledgeable in the area. If deciding to be an “expert”, then she will for sure be able to tell at least something about the basic properties of the ecosystem, such as a rough estimate of the number and type of species to be expected. Given more details, such as exact geographical position, we may now narrow in on ideas considering our background knowledge. There will be a huge difference in organisms, species composition, production, if we are in the arctic or in the tropics. Likewise, being for instance in the tropics there will be a huge difference between a coral reef in the Pacific Ocean or a mangrove swamp in the Rufiji River Delta. We will be able to begin to form images of the ecosystem in our minds, conceptual mod- els of trophic interactions, community linkages, and functional behavior. Meanwhile, we know very well that to get closer in details with our description we will need additional knowledge, for instance about ecological drivers, such as hydrodynamics, depth, and other external influences, such as human impacts from fisheries, loadings of both organic or inorganic in type, etc. Nevertheless, given as much information as we possibly can get, and for instance focusing in on a particular geographic position, such as the Mondego River Estuary in Portugal, we will not be able to answer accurately simple questions like: which plant species are present at a certain locality, how are they distributed, or what are their biomass and production? We will more likely be able to give an answer something like that under Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 37 Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 37 the given conditions we would consider it to be most likely that some rooted macrophyte will be present and that it would probably be of a type that do not break easily, probably with band-shaped leaves, probably some species of Zostera, etc. We will be able, based on experience and knowledge, to give only an estimate in terms of—what we shall later call the propensity—the system to be of a certain “kind”. BUT we will never be com- pletely sure. This is due to ontic openness. Examples from the world of music Sometimes, when introducing new concepts, it is useful to make an entrance from an unexpected and totally different angle. In this case, we will consider the world of music— a world with which most people are familiar and have specific preferences. We only know very few people to whom music does not say anything and literally does not “ring a bell”. We consider—in a Gedanken Experiment—the situation of an artist set to begin a new composition. To illustrate the universality of the approach we may illustrate the situation by the possible choices in two situations—a small etude for piano or a whole symphony. We shall start by looking at both the situations from a statistical and probabilistic angle. The two situations may look quite different from a macroscopic point of view, but in fact they are not. In the case of a short piece for piano, a normal house piano has a span of approximately 7 (or 7¼) octaves of 12 notes each giving 84 (or 88) keys in all. If an average chord on the piano has 5 notes in it, then it is theoretically possible to construct 3,704,641,920 or approximately 3.7 billion chords on it (4.7 billion in the case of 88 keys). (Note, that we already here deal with a subset of the 84!ϭ3.3ϫ10 126 possibilities.) Meanwhile, if the assumption that a chord consists of five notes on average is valid, then it does not take long to reach almost the same level of complexity sensu lato. Putting a small piece of music together, assuming that we work in a simple 4/4 and change chords for each quarter, after 16 notes or 4 bars we have reached a level 126ϫ10 153 of possible ways to construct the music. Many of these possible combinations of notes and chords would not sound as music at all and luckily we are faced with constraints. A physical constraint, such as the human physiology, will serve to limit the number of notes than can be accessed in a single chord (a good piano player will be able to span maybe over one octave per hand, thereby lower- ing the number of possible variations considerably). Psychological constraints of various kinds do also exist depending on the decisions of the composer or our personal taste—we do want the music to sound “nice”. The situation does not change a lot considering a symphony orchestra although com- plexity really rises much faster. Considering a relatively small symphony orchestra of say 50 musicians—each having a span of approximately 3 octaves or (36 notes)—even before starting we have 36 50 or 6.5ϫ 10 77 possibilities of how the first chord may sound. By the second note we have already exceeded any of the above numbers. Almost no physical constraints exist in this case. The task of the composer is very sim- ple, picking a style of music like the choices between classic or 12-tone music, between piano concerto, opera, or string quartets. The point is now that for each note, for each chord, there are many possibilities of what the composer could write on the sheet, but in fact only 38 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 38 one ends up being chosen, one “solution” out of an enormous number of possibilities. As we shall see later, the number of possibilities to choose from is so large (immense) that it makes no physical sense. Therefore, in the end the choice of the composer is unique. The fact that we will anyway be able to determine and talk about such a thing like style is that the composers have had a tendency (see propensities later) to choose certain combinations out of the possible. Let us end this section with a situation most people will know. Considering yourself a skilled person, familiar with the many styles of music, you listen to an unknown piece of music in a radio broadcast. It is a very melodic piece of music in a kind of style you really like and with which you are familiar. You, even without knowing the music, start to hum along with some success, but eventually you will not succeed to be totally right through- out the whole piece. Do not worry it is not you that is wrong, neither is the music—you are just experiencing the ontic openness of someone else, in this case the composer. 3.3 ONTIC OPENNESS AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD As mentioned above, a number of treatments of this topic exist that all add up to our pos- sible understanding of the importance of ontic openness and what it means in context of our everyday life. Putting them together and taking the statements to a level where we really see them as ontological features, i.e., as ontic, we will be, on one hand forced to reconsider what we are doing, on the other hand, we can look upon the world, and in particular the uncer- tainties, the emergent properties that we meet, in a much more relaxed manner. Unfortunately, to ecology and the ecologists, as previously mentioned, the statements that have already been made on openness almost all originate from physicists. In fact, seen from a philosophy of science point of view, this means that the statements are often dominated by arguments deeply rooted in reductionist science, often literally close to an atomistic view. Interesting things happen when the arguments are taken out of the reductionist realm to other levels of hierarchy, i.e., the arguments are taken out of their physical context and extended to biology and eventually—following our purpose of the present book—into ecology. The basic contributions we think of here may be represented by a number of scientists. A sketch of a few essential ideas that it may be possible to relate to the issue of ontic openness as well as the originators is given in Table 3.1. In the following sections, we will take a more detailed look at a few of these perspec- tives. From the table it is evident that we deal with quite recent contributions and some noteworthy overlaps in time. It would, of course, be interesting to know if and how these persons have influenced each other, a thing which may become clear only from close, inten- sive studies of the time development of their works and biographies. Meanwhile, this would be a tedious task and the possible mutual influence has not been considered in this paper. It is not possible to measure everything In the world of physics, the importance of uncertainty and our interference with systems through experiments has been recognized for less than a century. The introduction of con- cepts such as complementarity and irreversibility has offered solutions to many problems Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 39 Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 39 40 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective Table 3.1 A non-exhaustive list of various authors who have addressed the issue of ontic openness of natural, physical, and biological systems Originator Era Idea Remarks N. Bohr 1885–1962 Complementarity—the idea Derived from the wave- that more descriptions are particle duality needed E. Schrödinger 1887–1961 Order from disorder and Relates to Elsasser’s order from order immense numbers and historical aspects W. Heisenberg 1901–1976 The principle of uncertainty Argued to be valid also for or indeterminacy, e.g., the ecosystems by Jørgensen simultaneous determination of position and momentum of an electron is not possible K.R. Popper 1902–1994 (a) End of fixed probabilities Basic assumption behind —we need to work with Ulanowicz’ concept, propensities; (b) the open Ascendency universe W.M. Elsasser 1904–1991 Biological systems are The combinatorial heterogeneous and therefore explosions shaping this possess immense possibilities phase-space occurs at almost which are coped with by any level of hierarchy agency and history I.A. Prigogine 1917–2003 The understanding of Assumes that the “Onsager biological systems as relation” may be extended to dissipative structures and far the conditions of life from equilibrium systems (Chapter 6) C.S. Holling 1930– The idea that evolution See creative destruction, happens through breakdowns Chapter 7; similar to that opens up new H.T. Odum pulsing possibilities through an paradigm ordered/cycling process S.E. Jørgensen 1934– The Heisenberg uncertainty principle extended to ecosystem measurements S.A. Kauffman 1939– The continuous evolution of biological systems towards the edge of chaos Note: At first, the ideas may appear disparate, but in fact all illustrate the necessity to view systems as ontically open. Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 40 but has simultaneously involved the recognition of limits to the Newtonian paradigm. Below, we deal with some important findings in physics from the 20th century such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the Compton effects, and the relaxation of systems that may have future parallels in ecology. The Heisenberg principle The Heisenberg uncertainty relation tells that we cannot know exactly both the position and the velocity of an atom at the same time. At the instant when position is determined, the electron undergoes a discontinuous change in momentum. This change is greater the smaller the wavelength of the light employed. Thus, the more precise the position is determined, the less precise the momentum is known, and vice versa (see Box 3.1). The Compton effect The Compton effect deals with the change in wavelength of light when scattered by electrons. According to the elementary laws of the Compton effect, p 1 and  1 stand in the relation: (3.1) (3.2) where p 1 is the momentum of the electron, ⌬ 1 the wavelength increase due to the colli- sion, E 1 the energy, and T 1 the time. Equation 3.1 corresponds to Equation 3.2 and shows how a precise determination of energy can only be obtained at the cost of a corresponding uncertainty in the time (see Box 3.2). Spin relaxation Spin relaxation is possible because the spin system is coupled to the thermal motions of the “lattice”, be it gas, liquid, or solid. The fundamental point is that the lattice is at ther- mal equilibrium; this means that the probabilities of spontaneous spin transitions up and down are not equal, as they were for rf-induced transitions (see Box 3.3). ETh 11 ϫ Х ph 11 ϫ  Х Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 41 Box 3.1 The Heisenberg uncertainty principle or principle of indeterminacy The basic proof shows that the product of position and momentum will always be larger than Planck’s constant. This is given explicitly by the following mathematical terms: Where, s refers to space, p the momentum, and h the Planck’s constant (6.626ϫ10 –34 Js). sp h ϫՆϭ 1 24 h  Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 41 42 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective Box 3.2 The Compton effect and directionality From the uncertainty relation between position and momentum, another relation may be derived. Let  and E be the velocity and energy corresponding to momentum p x , then: Where ⌬E is the uncertainty of energy corresponding to the uncertainty of momen- tum ⌬p x and ⌬t the uncertainty in time within which the particle (or the wave packet) passes over a fixed point on the x-axis (Fong, 1962). Thus, irreversibility of time is not taken into account since in the quantum mechanics paradigm time is assumed to be reversible. We want to point out that if we take as an axiom the irreversibility of time it is an error to calculate the limit: because this means that: where: Simply speaking it is not possible to think t 1 as approximating t 0 from right, in fact, the state S(t 0 ) that the functions S reaches when t 1 becomes t 0 from right cannot be the same state S(t 0 ) that the function assumes as t 1 reaches t 0 from left. It is well known that if the left and right limits of a function are not identical then the limit does not exist. Hence, we must redefine the time derivative of a function as the left limit, if it exists This translates in practice to the statement that in the Cartesian graph it is impos- sible to cover the t-axis in both sense from left to right and right to left, but in the first manner only. lim 0   t s t ΗΈ Η Έ∆ttt tttttϽϪϽϪϽϪϽϪϽϽϩ  10 10 0 10 "$  ϾϾ Ͻ0, 0 :ΗΈ   t s t $ < lim 0   t s t Eth× Ն     p x h x Ն Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 42 Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 43 Box 3.3 Relaxation of systems Denoting the upward and downward relaxation probabilities by W  and W  (with W   W  ), the rate of change of N  is given by: At thermal equilibrium dN  /dtϭ 0, and denoting the equilibrium population by N 0 and N 0 we see that: The populations follow from Boltzmann’s law and so the ratio of the two transition probabilities must also be equal to exp(Ϫ⌬E/kT ). Expressing N  and N  in terms of N and n (n ϭ N  Ϫ N  ) we obtain: This may be rewritten as: in which n 0 , the population difference at thermal equilibrium, is equal to: and 1/T 1 is expressed by: T 1 thus has the dimensions of time and is called the “spin-lattice relaxation time”. It is a measure of the time taken for energy to be transferred to other degrees of free- dom, i.e., for the spin system to approach thermal equilibrium: Large values of T 1 (minutes or even hours for some nuclei) indicate very slow relaxation (Carrington and McLachlan: Introduction to magnetic resonance). It is now possible to say something about the width and shape of the resonance absorption line, which certainly cannot be represented by a Dirac  function. 1 1 T WWϭϩ   nN WW WW 0 ϭ Ϫ ϩ     ⎡ ⎣ ⎢ ⎢ ⎤ ⎦ ⎥ ⎥ d d () 0 1 n t nn T ϭϪ Ϫ d d ()() n t nW W N W WϭϪ ϩ ϩ Ϫ     N N W W 0 0     ϭ d d N t NW NW    ϭϪ (continued) Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 43 Given the remarks made at the start of this section, one may indeed start to wonder and speculate about the relations of these physical systems that obey universal laws when involved at the level of chemistry and biology and how or if these affect living systems at all. This is exactly what the physicist Walter M. Elsasser did and it may be worthwhile to spend a few moments studying his work and conclusions. What really differs between physics and biology: four principles of Elsasser The one contributor from Table 3.1 that literally takes the step from physics into biology was Walter M. Elsasser who’s “roaming” life is quite impressive. The details of his life are described in a biography 1 by Rubin (1995), who was acquainted with Elsasser in the last 10 years of his life. Most of the information on Elsasser’s below is based on this biography and Elsasser’s own autobiography (Elsasser, 1978). From these works, one can almost sense that Elsasser’s contributions were sparked by ontic openness on his own “body and soul” through- out his career. Rubin (1995) summarized Elsasser’s (1987) four basic principles of organisms: (A) ordered heterogeneity, (B) creative selection, (C) holistic memory, and (D) operative symbolism. The first principle is the key reference to ontic openness, while the other points address how this order arises in this “messy” world of immense numbers. In other words, the latter three seem more to be ad hoc inventions necessary to elaborate and explain the first. Background According to Rubin, Theophile Khan influenced Elsasser’s understanding of the over- whelming complexity dominating biological systems as compared with the relative simplicity of physics. Probably, he was also influenced by Wigner from whom he is likely to have picked up group or set theory. These studies, together with periodical influence from von Neumann, caused him to realize a fundamental difference between physical systems on one side and living systems on the other. Due to his early life education in atomic physics, he considered physical sys- tems as homogenous sets—all atoms and molecules of a kind basically possess the same properties and behavior. At this level, and always near to equilibrium conditions, the world is deterministic and reversible processes dominate. 44 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective First, it is clear that, because of the spin relaxation, the spin states have a finite life- time. The resulting line broadening can be estimated from the uncertainty relation: and thus we find that the line width due to spin-lattice relaxation will be of the order of 1/T 1 .  t Ϸ1 1 This excellent biography is available on the Internet in several forms. Philosophy of Science students will be provided with a deep insight in how production of a scientist may not necessarily depend on skill or education, but may rather be determined by political and sociological regimens throughout his life. Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch003.qxd 4/12/2007 15:31 Page 44 [...]... could have made 4.7 ϫ 1084 measurements Returning to Equation 3. 2 this means that we will have standard deviation (SD) (accuracy) of SD ϭ 10Ϫ17 4.7 ϫ 10 84 Ϸ 10Ϫ59 (3. 6) or in referring to Equation 3. 1 we may never succeed in measuring systems with more than n ϭ 237 ! Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch0 03. qxd 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 49 Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 49 To make an intermediate summary there are... this information by introducing DNA as “material carrier of this information” This cannot be seen as isolated from the history of science in the area of genetics Much of the Elsasser’s philosophical work has been written when the material structure and organization of our hereditary material, the chromosomes, was revealed The above arguments could be taken as if Elsasser was still basically a true reductionist... the amount of energy received for the past 4.5 billion years, and using 1. 731 ϫ 1017 J sϪ1as the value for incoming radiation, this gives a total value of E = No of years ϫ No of days ϫ No of hours ϫ No of seconds ϫ energy sϪ1 (3. 4) (ϭ 4.5 ϫ 109 ϫ 36 5 .3 ϫ 24 ϫ 36 00 ϫ 1. 731 0 ϫ 17) = 2.5 ϫ 1 034 J Inserting the value of Planck’s constant and solving Equation 3. 3 we may—again hypothetically—calculate the... extraordinary large number of possibilities that exist? Elsasser was precisely aware that living systems were non-deterministic, non-mechanist systems, as opposed to the physical systems that are always identical As Rubin (1995) states, they “repeat themselves over and over again but each organism is unique” Elsasser gives agency to the organisms, although judging from this point alone it is not very easy to... has an intrinsic Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch0 03. qxd 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 51 Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 51 temporal parameter Energy obeys spatial and material constraints; entropy obeys spatial, material, and temporal constraints If history and the succession of events are of scientific relevance, the concept of a state function should be revised at a higher level of complexity The singularity... of the applying a systems perspective to ecology and ecological theory Immense numbers are easily reached Much of the material given above clearly demonstrates that achieving numbers of interacting elements in ecological systems that are above Googol (10100 ), and thereby do not in themselves carry any physical meaning, is fairly common if not ubiquitous A combinatorial view on any level of hierarchy... Assuming that our sample is taken from a statistical population with a normal distribution and the standard deviation ( ) of the sample mean (x) is given by: ¯ SD ϭ No of samples (3) Equation (3. 3) may be re-organized into SD ϫ No.of samples ϭ1 (4) Thus, we could possibly make a measurement or sample in 10Ϫ67 of a second If we could have exercised this practice ever since the creation of the Earth, we... 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 46 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective possibilities The other side of the story, as the title indicates, is that we are also left with a large number of possibilities that have never been and are never going to be realized In other words, almost all events we may observe around us are literally unique There are simple, repeatable events in nature within the domain of classical probability,... has an energy term plus a time term that energy does not have Herein lies the physical connection to the concept of exergy dealt with in Chapters 2 and 6 Energy and mass are conservative quantities, thus it follows that total energy and mass cannot change with time They may transform to other types of energy and mass but the overall quantities remain the same that is they are reversible Entropy has... necessary for every measurement which will now be tϭ (6.626 ϫ 10 34 ) ր 4 hր 4 ϭ ϭ 10Ϫ67 s E 2.5 ϫ 1 034 (3. 5) Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch0 03. qxd 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 48 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective 48 Box 3. 4 Sampling uncertainties Given that the amount resources that can be spent on examining an ecosystem is limited to a finite amount of measurement For this calculation, a limit is set to 108, an arbitrarily . is at least a partial cause of indeterminacy and uncertainty in ecology and thus the reason that we are not able to make exact predictions or measurements with such a high accuracy as for instance in. problems Chapter 3: Ecosystems have ontic openness 39 Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch0 03. qxd 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 39 40 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective Table 3. 1 A non-exhaustive list of various authors who have addressed. intrinsic 50 A New Ecology: Systems Perspective Else_SP-Jorgensen_ch0 03. qxd 4/12/2007 15 :31 Page 50 temporal parameter. Energy obeys spatial and material constraints; entropy obeys spatial, material, and