Ecosystem

In biology/ecology an ecosystem is the collection of organisms in one area that interact and therefore depend on each other. It is to be contrasted with the notion that organisms are in deadly competition with each other for evolutionary survival. The notion of ecosystem recognises the many ways an organism interacts with and is dependent for its own survival on various parts of its environment. The concept of ecosystem may be viewed as a systems gerneralization of the food chain and food web, allowing for more general relationships than consumption. For example, plants not only provide food for animals but also shelter, shade, etc.

The contrast between the idea of survivial through competition and the idea of an ecosystem has also been transferred to social and economic systems. The term ecosystem is used when people talk about the environment that a company is part of, when they think about how it interacts with various suppliers (of equipment, of parts, of services, of knowledge, of financial liquidity, etc.), partners in its primary activity, consumers or users of the products or services it provides, and the underlying structure and behavior of the technology, markets and social context. The idea of establishing alliances with companies that might otherwise have been thought of as competitors reflects the notion that cooperation in an ecosystem is part of how the organisms that comprise it survive.

In the general usage one can contrast "ecosystem" to the term "system" which focuses on the collective behaviors. The term ecosystem is typically used to describe the internal dependencies of the larger system especially as they pertain to a particular part. For example, one might say "he/it is part of my ecosystem" to refer to recognizing one's dependence on the other in the larger context. Thus, ecosystem is almost a substitute for the term environment, but it emphasizes the existance of various parts of the environment, rather than the environment as a single entity.

In ecology, the term also refers to the system (collective) behaviors of an ecological system (e.g. forest, wetland, coral reef, etc.) consisting of interdependent biological organisms and their physical context. The large scale collective behaviors include, for example, the forest lifecycle that might in some places include destruction by fire and stages of regrowth.

We see that, in principle, the idea of an ecosystem corresponds to viewing an organism or company (etc.) as part of a larger scale system whose parts are interacting and interdependent.

 

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