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Balance of nature
The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system. The balance is sometimes depicted as easily disturbed and delicate, while other times it is inversely portrayed as powerful enough to correct any imbalances by itself. The concept has been described as "normative", as well as teleological, as it makes a claim about how nature should be: nature is balanced because "it is supposed to be balanced". The theory has been employed to describe how populations depend on each other, for example in predator-prey systems, or relationships between herbivores and their food source. It is also sometimes applied to the relationship between the Earth's ecosystem, the composition of the atmosphere, and weather.
The theory has been discredited by scientists working in ecology, as it has been found that constant disturbances leading to chaotic and dynamic changes are the norm in nature. During the later half of the 20th century, it was superseded by catastrophe theory, chaos theory, and thermodynamics. Nevertheless, the idea maintains popularity amongst conservationists, environmentalists and the general public.
The concept that nature maintains its condition is of ancient provenance. Herodotus asserted that predators never excessively consume prey populations and described this balance as "wonderful". Two of Plato's dialogues, the Timaeus and Protagoras myths, support the balance of nature concept. Cicero advanced the theory of "a balance of nature generated by different reproductive rates and traits among species, as well as interactions among species".
The balance of nature concept once ruled ecological research and governed the management of natural resources. This led to a doctrine popular among some conservationists that nature was best left to its own devices, and that human intervention into it was by definition unacceptable.
The theory was a central theme in the 1962 book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, widely-considered to be the most important environmental book of the 20th century. The controversial Gaia hypothesis was developed in the 1970s by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. It asserts that living beings interact with Earth to form a complex system which self-regulates to maintain the balance of nature.
The validity of a balance of nature was already questioned in the early 1900s, but the general abandonment of the theory by scientists working in ecology only happened in the last quarter of that century, when studies showed that it did not match what could be observed among plant and animal populations.
Predator-prey populations tend to show chaotic behavior within limits, where the sizes of populations change in a way that may appear random but is, in fact, obeying deterministic laws based only on the relationship between a population and its food source illustrated by the Lotka–Volterra equation. An experimental example of this was shown in an eight-year study on small Baltic Sea creatures such as plankton, which were isolated from the rest of the ocean. Each member of the food web was shown to take turns multiplying and declining, even though the scientists kept the outside conditions constant. An article in the journal Nature stated: "Advanced mathematical techniques proved the indisputable presence of chaos in this food web ... short-term prediction is possible, but long-term prediction is not."
Although some conservationist organizations argue that human activity is incompatible with a balanced ecosystem, there are numerous examples in history showing that several modern-day habitats originate from human activity: some of Latin America's rain forests owe their existence to humans planting and transplanting them, while the abundance of grazing animals in the Serengeti plain of Africa is thought by some ecologists to be partly due to human-set fires that created savanna habitats.
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Balance of nature
The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system. The balance is sometimes depicted as easily disturbed and delicate, while other times it is inversely portrayed as powerful enough to correct any imbalances by itself. The concept has been described as "normative", as well as teleological, as it makes a claim about how nature should be: nature is balanced because "it is supposed to be balanced". The theory has been employed to describe how populations depend on each other, for example in predator-prey systems, or relationships between herbivores and their food source. It is also sometimes applied to the relationship between the Earth's ecosystem, the composition of the atmosphere, and weather.
The theory has been discredited by scientists working in ecology, as it has been found that constant disturbances leading to chaotic and dynamic changes are the norm in nature. During the later half of the 20th century, it was superseded by catastrophe theory, chaos theory, and thermodynamics. Nevertheless, the idea maintains popularity amongst conservationists, environmentalists and the general public.
The concept that nature maintains its condition is of ancient provenance. Herodotus asserted that predators never excessively consume prey populations and described this balance as "wonderful". Two of Plato's dialogues, the Timaeus and Protagoras myths, support the balance of nature concept. Cicero advanced the theory of "a balance of nature generated by different reproductive rates and traits among species, as well as interactions among species".
The balance of nature concept once ruled ecological research and governed the management of natural resources. This led to a doctrine popular among some conservationists that nature was best left to its own devices, and that human intervention into it was by definition unacceptable.
The theory was a central theme in the 1962 book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, widely-considered to be the most important environmental book of the 20th century. The controversial Gaia hypothesis was developed in the 1970s by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. It asserts that living beings interact with Earth to form a complex system which self-regulates to maintain the balance of nature.
The validity of a balance of nature was already questioned in the early 1900s, but the general abandonment of the theory by scientists working in ecology only happened in the last quarter of that century, when studies showed that it did not match what could be observed among plant and animal populations.
Predator-prey populations tend to show chaotic behavior within limits, where the sizes of populations change in a way that may appear random but is, in fact, obeying deterministic laws based only on the relationship between a population and its food source illustrated by the Lotka–Volterra equation. An experimental example of this was shown in an eight-year study on small Baltic Sea creatures such as plankton, which were isolated from the rest of the ocean. Each member of the food web was shown to take turns multiplying and declining, even though the scientists kept the outside conditions constant. An article in the journal Nature stated: "Advanced mathematical techniques proved the indisputable presence of chaos in this food web ... short-term prediction is possible, but long-term prediction is not."
Although some conservationist organizations argue that human activity is incompatible with a balanced ecosystem, there are numerous examples in history showing that several modern-day habitats originate from human activity: some of Latin America's rain forests owe their existence to humans planting and transplanting them, while the abundance of grazing animals in the Serengeti plain of Africa is thought by some ecologists to be partly due to human-set fires that created savanna habitats.