The Origin of Ecosystems by Means of Subjective Selection

Abstract

“Ecosystem” was defined in 1935 by Sir Arthur Tansley as:

the whole system (in the sense of physics) including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment of the biome-the habitat factors in the widest sense. Though the organisms may claim our primary interest, when we are trying to think fundamentally we cannot separate them from their special environment, with which they form one physical system. It is the systems so formed which, from the point of view of the ecologist, are the basic units of nature on the face of the Earth (Tansley 1935).