Predicting Ecosystem Response to Perturbation from Thermodynamic Criteria

TL;DR

This paper introduces a thermodynamic framework based on irreversible thermodynamics to predict how ecosystems respond to perturbations, offering a new perspective on population dynamics and stability analysis.

Contribution

It develops a thermodynamic approach for predicting ecosystem responses to perturbations, applying non-equilibrium thermodynamics to ecological stability and dynamics.

Findings

Thermodynamic criteria can quantitatively predict ecosystem responses.

The framework applies to real ecosystems, exemplified by pine beetle population oscillations.

Provides a new perspective on ecosystem stability and population dynamics.

Abstract

The response of ecosystems to perturbations is considered from a thermodynamic perspective by acknowledging that, as for all macroscopic systems and processes, the dynamics and stability of ecosystems is subject to definite thermodynamic law. For open ecosystems, exchanging energy, work, and mass with the environment, the thermodynamic criteria come from non-equilibrium or irreversible thermodynamics. For ecosystems during periods in which the boundary conditions may be considered as being constant, it is shown that criteria from irreversible thermodynamic theory are sufficient to permit a quantitative prediction of ecosystem response to perturbation. This framework is shown to provide a new perspective on the population dynamics of real ecosystems. The formalism is applied to the problem of the population oscillations of the southern pine beetle.