New perspectives through brackish water ecology

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, the brackish water ecology of the Baltic, like all ecology, is a secondary science. That is, the phenomena it considers can be decomposed into series of more elementary events acting under a sequence of laws that culminates either in the netherworld of quantum physics or in the realm of the cosmological. Ecology, however, is not a derivative science; it is fundamental in its own right. The Baltic ecosystem, for example, is a complex system of many-components. Using combinatorics one may argue that most of the whole-system configurations which ecologists encounter comprise unique and original events that elude treatment via the conventional Baconian approach. Chaos does not reign, however, because there exist among the populations of the ecosystem self-reinforcing mutualistic loops that exert a form of selection upon their constituent members quite different from the ‘natural selection’ of evolutionary theory. This feedback gives rise to what Karl Popper described as ‘propensities’ that serve in contingent systems in lieu of conventional forces to maintain the coherence of the ecosystem. The ensuing autonomous ‘ecodynamics’ can be quantified using information theory, resulting in measures that can be used to compare the status of the Baltic ecosystem with those of similar bodies of water, such as Chesapeake Bay.