Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of two species in the most simplistic way. Actually, any real ecological context is
by far more complex than two types of organisms interacting in a constant
environment. Interestingly, in a metaphorical sense, it can be stated, that the
LV-equations have the same role in ecology as Kepler's laws had in astronomy:
the two-body problem can be mathematically solved. In isolation, the mutual
gravitational impact of two objects is easy to describe in an equation. But when
three or more mass points influence each other, it becomes very difficult to
develop a valid model. The three-body problem requires numeric approximation
and can be solved only in some special cases. In ecology, it was now possible to
write down one, two, or a larger number of equations for the interaction of
populations. But the equations could not be solved if their complexity was only
a little bit higher than the LV-model. This may have been the reason why
ecological modelling still played a peripheral role in the ecological science.
This aspect changed with the extent that network interactions could be numeri-
cally managed.
von Bertalanffy: System Theoretic Foundation
and Generalization
The Austrian biologist and philosopher Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972)
(Fig.
3.3
) played an important role in establishing and popularizing the systems
perspective in biology in general, and influenced ecology (1949, see also 1969). He
developed the concept of a flow equilibrium and emphasised the holistic approach.
This encouraged to turn conceptual reasoning about the relations of interacting
parts and the whole into practical research agendas. In his time, the transition was
Fig. 3.3 Ludwig von
Bertalanffy (courtesy of
Bertalanffy Center for the
Study of Systems Science,
W. Hofkirchner, Vienna
http://www.bertalanffy.org
)
