ECOSYSTEMS AND SOCIO-ECOSYSTEMS
Mateo Aguado, José A. González, Pedro L. Lomas and Violeta Hevia
Ecosystems are complex, dynamic and self-regulated natural systems of living organisms, that interact with each other and with their non-living environment within a given space, operating as a functional unit. The different plants, animals and microorganisms they are made up of are structured and linked through a network of biophysical relationships, and they process, transfer and exchange matter and energy with their environment (Odum y Barrett, 1971; Odum, 2006). Ecosystems can be defined on a great variety of spatial scales, nested from the smallest to the largest like a Russian doll. The concept of ecosystem can be applied to any part of the ecosphere, from a little pond to the Earth System as a whole.
All ecosystems have a structure and a functioning mode. The structure of an ecosystem refers to the organisation and disposition of the various biotic elements (biosystem) and geotic elements (geosystem) it is composed of. The biosystem comprises the entire system of organisms present, linked by a web of trophic interdependence. The geosystem, by contrast, is made up of all the abiotic elements, linked by a web of geo-physical-chemical relations. The functioning of an ecosystem refers to the causal relations established among its components through the exchange of matter (circular nutrient flows) and unidirectional energy flows (Odum and Barrett, 1971; Pineda, 1996).
Ecosystems are subject to a series of essential processes that condition their structure and functioning in space and time. These ecological processes, or ecosystem processes, are both biological and physical-chemical, and include the decomposition and production of organic matter, nutrient recycling and flow, and energy transference, among others. All ecosystems function in the same way but can organise their structure differently (Odum y Barrett, 1971; Pineda, 1996).
Ecosystems are not static entities, but are dynamic, and maintain their capacity for self-organisation. To this effect, ecological integrity is the term given to ecosystems’ capacity to maintain their structure, functioning and development over time, as well as their capacity to absorb the stress generated by the natural or anthropic disturbances they might suffer (Pineda, 1996). Disturbances of varying intensity and recurrence are, therefore, an intrinsic feature of ecosystems that contributes to their renewal, causing them never to reach a state of equilibrium, but rather a continuous and dynamic state of self-organisation in which the associated changes are the norm rather than the exception (Margalef, 1974).
Many authors argue that, through history, ecosystems and human beings have shared a process of co-evolution in which both parties have moulded and adapted to each other (Anderies et al., 2004). On these lines, some authors claim that societies and ecosystems are so closely linked that an exclusive delineation of one or the other can only be arbitrary and artificial (Berkes et al., 2000). Such intense entanglement between ecosystems and human beings renders the classical term ecosystem insufficient to describe the full panoply of complexities, uncertainties and changing dynamics at play in the field on their different space-time scales. These integrated systems of humans in nature have been called social-ecological systems (or socio-ecosystems) (Berkes et al., 2000; Liu et al., 2007) (other related terms commonly found in the literature are eco-social systems and coupled human-environment systems), and have been defined as the biogeophysical units to which one or more social systems are associated (Glaser et al., 2008). While biogeophysical units are made up of ecosystems, social systems are made up of people interacting with the ecosystems and of the institutions that regulate these interactions, both within the social system itself and between the social and the ecological systems (Berkes et al., 2000).
The social-ecological systems concept may facilitate the study of society-environment interactions in the current context of global change, as it enables us to apply complex systems theory to this endeavour. In this regard, social-ecological systems can be regarded as complex adaptable systems, arranged on a tiered structure, subject to non-linear dynamics and capable of self-organisation, like all living systems (Berkes et al., 2000; Lomas, 2023).
Despite the original intention of bridging the gap between nature and society, a wide range of authors (e. g., Armitage et al., 2012; Cote and Nightingale, 2011; Davidson, 2010; Stone-Jovicich, 2015) note that the various frameworks in which progress has been made working on the concept of socio-ecosystem are often biased toward ecology, that is, they may rely too heavily on the conceptual and theoretical approach used to study and describe ecological systems. They argue that transferring these concepts and theory to social systems is not as direct as implicitly assumed in practice, as conceptual problems may arise from the use of metaphors whose scope or meanings vary from one discipline to another. In this sense, and in view of the determinism in their approach to ecological theory, these authors claim that aspects that are of relevance in the description of social systems, such as power, competition among values systems, human agency, or other more normative aspects, may be sidestepped. In addition, within the scope of this critique, it is also pointed out that this framework might ignore, at least partially, the debate on the nature and characterisation of social systems among disciplines such as sociology or anthropology.
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