Ecological autocatalysis: A central principle in ecosystem organization?

Michiel P. Veldhuis*, Matty P. Berg, Michel Loreau, Han Olff

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Ecosystems comprise flows of energy and materials, structured by organisms and their interactions. Important generalizations have emerged in recent decades about conversions by organisms of energy (metabolic theory of ecology) and materials (ecological stoichiometry). However, these new insights leave a key question about ecosystems inadequately addressed: are there basic organizational principles that explain how the interaction structure among species in ecosystems arises? Here we integrate recent contributions to the understanding of how ecosystem organization emerges through ecological autocatalysis (EA), in which species mutually benefit through self-reinforcing circular interaction structures. We seek to generalize the concept of EA by integrating principles from community and ecosystem ecology. We discuss evidence suggesting that ecological autocatalysis is facilitated by resource competition and natural selection, both central principles in community ecology. Furthermore, we suggest that pre-emptive resource competition by consumers and plant resource diversity drive the emergence of autocatalytic loops at the ecosystem level. Subsequently, we describe how interactions between such autocatalytic loops can explain pattern and processes observed at the ecosystem scale, and summarize efforts to model different aspect of the phenomenon. We conclude that EA is a central principle that forms the backbone of the organization in systems ecology, analogous to autocatalytic loops in systems chemistry.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)304-319
    Number of pages16
    JournalEcological Monographs
    Volume88
    Issue number3
    Early online date22 Feb 2018
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2018

    Funding

    M. P. Veldhuis, M. P. Berg, and H. Olff together developed the concept. M. P. Veldhuis wrote the first draft of the manuscript. M. Loreau contributed the modeling sections and all authors contributed substantially to the revisions. M. Loreau was supported by the TULIP Laboratory of Excellence (ANR-10-LABX-41). We thank Eric S. Higgs and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 641918. [Correction added 12 June, 2018 after online publication. The last funding statement was mistakenly omitted from the original manuscript.]

    FundersFunder number
    Horizon 2020 Framework Programme641918
    Laboratoire d'Excellence TULIPANR-10-LABX-41

      Keywords

      • Autocatalytic loops
      • Community ecology
      • Ecosystem ecology
      • Interaction structure
      • Positive feedback
      • Pre-emptive resource competition
      • Resource diversity
      • Self-organization

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