RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 Uncertainty principle in niche assessment: A solution to the dilemma redundancy vs. competitive exclusion, and some analytical consequences
A1 Fernández-Palacios, José María
K1 Competitive exclusion
K1 Ecological niche
K1 Ecological state equation
K1 Ecological equivalent of Planck’s constant
K1 Functional redundancy
K1 Uncertainty principle
K1 Exclusión competitiva
K1 Nicho ecológico
K1 Ecuación de estado ecológica
K1 Equivalente ecológica de la constante de Planck
K1 Redundancia funcional
K1 Principio de incertidumbre
AB There has been a categorically unresolved crucial question in ecology and evolutionary theory for manydecades; perhaps from the times of Charles Darwin himself: Is it possible, under natural conditions,that two species can perform a commonly shared ecological niche? There are two extreme conventionalresponses that have kept divided the scientific community in this regard for almost forty years: (a) No;that is to say, the well-known competitive exclusion principle (CEP). (b) Yes; that is to say, the well-knownhypothesis of full functional redundancy (HFR). Obviously, the reliability of both responses depends on anunderlying and even more essential requisite: that the ecological niche of a given species can be assessedwith such accuracy as we could want in order to detect the degree in which it is shared between coexistingspecies. This article is the seventh in a continuous series of interconnected recent publications that pro-motes an alternative understanding of ecology and evolutionary biology which is in favor of strong andmutually fruitful analytical links between biology and physics. This article analyzes the statistical behav-ior of ecological niches by taking into account two indicators that are essential to perform the ecologicalniche of all species: species diversity per plot (Hp) and eco-kinetic energy (Ee) as a proxy for trophic energyin a scalar field Hp, Eein which an oscillating performance of ecological niches is deployed. According toour results, in the same measurement in which the accuracy of Hpassessments increases (reduction ofHp’s standard deviation:  Hp) the accuracy of Eeassessment decreases (increment of  Ee), and vice versa, inagreement with a pattern that is completely equivalent to that of the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principlein quantum mechanics (i.e.:  Hp·  Ee  1/2heec/2 ; where heec: ecological equivalent of Planck’s con-stant found in previous publications). As a result, the ecological niche is, even in principle in addition toin practice, indeterminable with enough exactness to arrive to a categorical response to the above-statedquestion. This means that CEP and HFR are simultaneously true and false in the same measure, becausethe only feasible option to keep the functional stability of ecosystems is a wave-like combination of bothoptions: when species are pushed to a high degree of coexistence (increase of partition of the gradient) in regard to Hpvalues (a trend in favor of HFR), their degree of coexistence in regard to Eevalues dimin-ishes (decrease of partition of the Eegradient, a trend in favor of CEP), and vice versa. The final sections ofthe article highlight the eco-evolutionary, biogeographical and socio-economic meaning of this result, byoffering plausible alternative explanations to a wide spectrum of phenomena that appear to be only par-tially understood so far, e.g.: the contradictory results about the relationship between body size, speciesdiversity and macroevolutionary rates; the general environmental scenario in favor of macroevolutionaryleaps with a low probability to leave footprints in the fossil record; the unnecessary, although stimu-lant, influence of geographic isolation to promote evolutionary changes; the island rule; and the generalmeaning of the interaction between nature and society.
PB Elsevier BV
YR 2015
FD 2015
LK http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/18605
UL http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/18605
LA en
DS Repositorio institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna
RD 13-nov-2024