The Arctic Environmental Problems - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 555

criteria founded on conclusions, expertise and recommendations. At present, there
is no uni ed methodology for selection between the set of criteria due to the

absence of a common science-based approach to the ecological standardization of
anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment. After all, the precision of the
ecological expertise for the functioning and planning of anthropogenic systems, as
well as the representativeness of the global geoinformation monitoring data, depend
on these criteria.
Biocomplexity is the study of complex structures and behaviors that arise from
nonlinear interactions of active biological agents, which may range in scale from
molecules to cells to organisms. Almost every biological system is complex. It is
characterized by emergent properties, where the ensemble possesses capabilities
that its individual agents lack. While physical and chemical processes give rise to a
great variety of spatial and temporal structures, the complexity of even the simplest
biological phenomena is in

nitely richer. The goal of many authors is to meld
physical, mathematical, and computational approaches with those of modern
biology to understand this complexity in a quantitative and predictive way (Feller
et al. 2010).
What is bio-complexity? This is a question which many researchers grapple
with, every day. The world of bio-complexity research encompasses the efforts of
many different types of scientists all working towards a common goal, how living
things interact with and affect the environment and each other. It is very hard to find
a good de nition for bio-complexity. It includes areas of biology, chemistry,

engineering, oceanography, geology, microbiology, genetics, and ecology. The U.
S. National Science Foundation explains that it refers to phenomena that arise from

dynamic interactions that take place within biological systems and between these
systems and the physical environment

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( http://www.nsf.gov ) .
Arctic biocomplexity project is examining how biological and physical pro-
cesses interact to control carbon uptake, storage and release in Arctic tundra eco-
systems and how the self-organizing nature of these interactions varies across
multiple spatial and temporal scales. Approximately 25 % of the world

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s soil
organic carbon reservoir is stored at high northern latitudes in permafrost and
seasonally-thawed soils in the Arctic, a region that is currently undergoing
unprecedented warming and drying, as well as dramatic changes in human land use.
Understanding how changes in annual and inter-annual ecosystem productivity
interact and potentially offset the balance and stability of the Arctic soil carbon
reservoir is of utmost importance to global climate change science. If there is a net
loss of soil carbon to the atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases (namely CO 2
and CH 4 ), greenhouse warming could be enhanced. This non-linear, potentially
positive feedback response could very quickly cause Arctic terrestrial ecosystems to
function in an unprecedented manner and with globally signi

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cant implications.
Many international and national projects aim at biocomplexity study for the
arctic regions. Project of Alaska Geobotany Center

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Biocomplexity of Frost Boil

Ecosystems ( http://www.geobotany.uaf.edu/cryoturbation ) seeks to understand the

complex linkages between biogeochemical cycles, vegetation, disturbance, and

”