Mathematical Ecology: Towards the Theory of Ecosystem Stability Based on the Cycle of Substances and Limiting Factors
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 182
Special Issue Editor
Interests: cycle; limiting factors; biosphere models; stability criteria; similarity of ecosystems; ecosystem management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Mathematical ecology is a discipline that uses mathematics to study the interaction of organisms and the communities they create against the background of external factors using mathematical modeling. Modern ecology faces many problems, but the main and the most relevant ones, in our opinion, are as follows:
- forecasting the state of an ecosystem under the influence of anthropogenic factors;
- selection of the optimal strategy for the use of various renewable natural resources;
- management of populations and their communities to achieve a predetermined state of such communities and their environment.
These and similar problems constitute the applied aspect of environmental problems.
However, there remain questions of a fundamental nature which, in ecology, cannot be solved by experimental methods due to the impossibility of physically repeating experimental situations, unlike in purely physical science. It is impossible to conduct experiments with the whole biosphere, for example with Lake Baikal or with the boreal forests of Siberia, in which researchers intervened to change the level of the greenhouse effect, and so on. In this regard, mathematical modeling is the only tool that can be used to test the adequacy of hypotheses and the proximity of a theory to observations in an effort to approach the resolution of environmental paradoxes (for example, the plankton paradox), etc., which will contribute to a significant advance in understanding the essence of environmental processes.
In this issue, the focus will be placed on the following general fundamental problems and their modeling:
- the connection of the stable existence of the Earth's biosphere with the cycle mechanism(s); possible types of “dead ends” in the cycle;
- the Darwin–Vernadsky paradox and the existence of the biosphere;
- approaches to similarization of ecosystems;
- artificial biospheres as possible models of the biosphere;
- general model description of the dynamics of forest and water ecosystems.
Dr. Andrey Degermendzhy
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- cycle
- limiting factors
- biosphere models
- stability criteria
- similarity of ecosystems
- ecosystem management
