Abstract
In a review /1/ of two recent and seminal books on the theory of evolution /2,3/ the evolutionist Ghiselin points to limitations at the root of ecological science, “Ecologists are most unclear about the nature of their fundamental units, and about what such units do”. This is a useful challenge to ecologists and one that can be answered at least in part. It is also interesting from a further aspect as it illustrates the value of interdisciplinary contact which may hold some lessons for the future collaboration of biologists and physicists under the banner of Ecodynamics. Thus in this paper I shall try to address the question of fundamental components in particularly in ecology and where possible make connections to concepts in physics. If this makes for a rather strangely structured paper then at least the reason for it is clear.
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Cousins, S.H. (1988). Fundamental Components in Ecology and Evolution: Hierarchy, Concepts and Descriptions. In: Wolff, W., Soeder, CJ., Drepper, F.R. (eds) Ecodynamics. Research Reports in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-73953-8_4
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