The earth is a nonisolated system. There is almost no exchange of matter with the outer space (the earth loses a little hydrogen and receives meteorites). To utilize the earth's matter several times during its evolution, cycling is necessary. Cycling implies that the ecosystem components are linked in an interacting network. The flow of energy from the sun to the ecosystems is also limited. It is important that an ecosystem captures as much sunlight as possible to cover its energy needs. Therefore, ecosystems, with increased biomass, can increase net primary productivity. The development of the life forms on the earth is possible because the earth has the elements that are needed to build the biochemical compounds that explain the life processes. It includes water that is an ideal solvent for biochemical reactions. In addition, the earth has the right temperature range that means that the biochemical reactions proceed with a certain rate and that the decomposition of particularly proteins is moderate. The right balance between formation and destruction of high molecular proteins that are the enzymatic compounds controlling the life processes is, thereby, obtained.

In ecological and other transactional energy–matter flow networks, accurate quantification of flows between compartments can be difficult and costly. For models at steady state or undergoing linear change, energy–matter conservation together with the steady-state condition can be exploited to estimate unknown flows from known ones. In compartmental network models, some flows are more important than others in terms of their connections to other flows, participation in cycles, geodesic distance to the environment (in the graph theoretical sense), and other topological features. In respect to estimating unknown flows, such importance differences also come into play. Pursuing this, we formulate a Link Importance iNdeX (LINX) that quantifies each flow’s importance in a model. This index identifies and quantifies the redundancy imposed by network topology and mathematical conservation rules. We anticipate that it will find use in minimizing the cost and effort of data collection while also increasing model accuracy.

Adam Smith's classic, The Wealth of Nations (Smith, 1776), laid down the foundations for free-market, and later growth, economics. Goals, resources, currencies, labor, and skills in human enterprise all have parallels in the economy of nature: Self-interested people have counterparts in survival-driven species; Opportunities and markets are reflected in resource and habitat niches; Division of labor is expressed in role niches and biodiversity; Persistence of economic growth is matched in that of biological growth; Growth in money-flow mirrors matter-and energy-flow in ecosystems; Capital accumulation as monetary profit in economics is expressed as the standing stocks of natural capital in ecology; and finally, Smith's invisible hand, generating "greatest goods for the greatest many", finds specificity in the utility theory and mathematics of ecology's network environ analysis. These parallels, and the fact that man is a part of nature also, suggest the same laws direct both ecology and economics. This paper summarizes the Janus Hypothesis (Patten, 2016) as a candidate theory determining natural (and human) economics. The hypothesis holds that three relational "ABC"s-autonomy, biodiversity, and connectivity-self-organize to maximize biological and environmental fitness in the transactional economy of nature. Applicability to human economics is axiomatic.

For over 40 years, Professor Bernie Patten, offered a course on Field Systems Ecology at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, USA. The course combined systems analysis approaches and natural field ecology in a way that gave the students new perspectives on making conceptual and formal models of the natural world. The course employed extensive use of outdoor field laboratories at a nearby park, which had multiple ecological habitats. The main progression was to go from simple observations to "seeing systems" to modeling by learning how to ask pertinent systems-oriented questions. This started with a structured walk through the six identified subsystems (forest ridgetop, forest slope, field, lake, stream, and wetland) and proceeded to specific field sampling techniques for the terrestrial and aquatic environments. In addition to the field labs, the course required two weekend camping trips, one to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park in the Appalachian Mountains and one to the Okefenokee Swamp/Cumberland Island National Seashore. The idea was to use the two weekend trips to frame the local watershed scale processes at the continental scale. In this manner, students could observe and measure ecosystem processes and interactions at multiple scales. The notes, which are reproduced below, have been further modified for use at Towson University which utilizes a local park in Baltimore County called Oregon Ridge Park and weekend trips to Catoctin National Park and Chesapeake Bay. The general approach of these notes should have universal appeal to anyone teaching or taking a systems ecology course. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Aspects of ecology-based environmentalism may run counter to how nature works; it is important to get the science right.The Janus Enigma Hypothesis is formulated as a flow-storage network approach to holistic ecological understanding. It proceeds from primary energy-matter consumption toward maximization of through flow. When transferred material is energy, the goal function is maximum power (energy flow).The Janus Hypothesis has the following line of development:1. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics requires that the environments of aggrading (anti-entropic) processes become themselves degraded. To restrict such degradation is to limit life's processes.2. A maximum power conjecture holds that aggrading systems self-organize to maximize power generating work. Maximal resource use, work production, and environmental degradation necessarily follow. This applies also to material flow in generalized energy-matter (throughflow) processing.3. In maximizing power (throughflow), biota perform work to maximize their fitness (Type I, biological), but at the expense of degraded environments. Zero-sumness of conservative, consumptive transfers produces a proximate life-environment relationship that is win-lose.4. But covert mechanisms also operate such that maximizing throughflow also maximizes a system-wide, nonzero-sum, network property-dominant indirect effects.5. These maximize another property of network organization, network synergism. This transforms proximate, tangible, zero-sum, agonistic, (+, -) transactions into ultimate, intangible, nonzero-sum, mainly positive (+, +) and synergistic relations. The proximate transactions lead by network processes to ultimate nonzero-sum benefits > costs, which is network synergism.6. By the indirect line from maximum power (throughflow) to network synergism, biotic work maximizes both biological and ecological fitness (Type II), and the life-environment relationship becomes win-win. This cannot be seen from pure empiricism because it plays out diffusely as limit processes in networks that are virtual.Three lines of evidence are presented in support of the Janus Hypothesis: (1) "Building a biosphere" by progressively adding nodes and links in simple compartment models shows throughflow and network synergism to be positively correlated. (2) Decomposing the utility measure of network synergism in these models into its constituents shows them to be largely made up of throughflows; maximum network synergism likely follows from the maximization of throughflow. (3) Comparing total system throughflow with network synergism in 31 food webs described for Ukrainian pasturelands shows the two measures to be positively correlated in this large empirical database.The Janus Hypothesis has a built-in paradox. Because the positive benefits derived from the nonzero-sum maximum throughflow -> network synergism -> Fitness-II line exceed the negative costs generated by the zero-sum maximum throughflow -> Fitness-I line, applied programs designed to reduce environmental degradation will reduce not only Fitness-I, but also Fitness-II by foregoing the implicit benefits of network synergism that inherently exceed the explicit costs of maximizing throughflow. This is the Janus Enigma. It means that well-meaning but misguided environmental programs may actually, in fact must, induce a lose-lose relationship between life and environment. If the Janus Hypothesis proves scientifically valid, environmentalism must resolve and manage the apparent conflict, and ecology as its parent science must expand its dimensions and become a complex systems science competent in understanding and methodology to meet the challenges of complex, intractable, non-obvious holism in nature's living networks. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Causality in Complex Adaptive Hierarchical Systems (CAHSystems) is bipolar. In the hierarchical organization, within-scale contributions come both from below (reductionistic) and above (holistic). Holoecology is ecology that seeks to bring holism and formalism into the traditional mix of descriptive, empirical approaches to elaborating ecological cause and effect. The holism is philosophical and methodological, ecological modeling being an important element in the latter. The formalism (presently) is built around a body of environmental system theory called the Theory of Environs. This theory encompasses a set of "principles" of transactional network organization, where a transaction is a flow of conservative substance (energy or matter) between two system components. These are numbered, and referred to not as principles, but as cardinal hypotheses, because they are conditioned on verification or falsification by empirical or theoretical means. Presently, there are 20 of them:1. Network pathway proliferation increase of pathway numbers with length.2. Network nonlocality dominance of indirect effects.3. Network homogenization trend to uniform distribution of transaction based causation.4. Network aggradation network growth and development properties move systems away from thermodynamic equilibrium.5. Network throughflow maximization system-wide virtual goal function.6. Network storage maximization system-wide concrete goal function.7. Network boundary amplification benefits of agency in boundary crossing.8. Network interior amplification benefits of high node in-degree.9. Network enfolding entwinement of boundary relations into deep interiors.10. Network unfolding conversion of networks to macrochains.11. Network centrifugality/centripetality expansion and contraction of influence from node storage in, respectively, output and input environs.12. Network topogenesis quantitative determination of stocks and flows by topological properties of qualitative digraphs.13. Network synergism system-wide benefits > costs emergent in network organization.14. Network interaction typing structural determination (by digraph topology) vs. parametric determination (by quantitative flow-storage transactions) of qualitative relations specifying binary interaction types (e.g., predation, competition, mutualism) between component pairs in systems.15. Network mutualism emergence of positive interaction types (symbioses) in network organization.16. Network Janus Enigma Hypothesis stronger adjacent transactions produce stronger ultimate expression of positive binary relations (network synergism), but also stronger proximate environmental degradation.17. Network clockwork stockworks (holon autonomy) time delay of substance flow in storage causes nodes to dominate in determining network properties; "'net'works" are really more like "clockwork 'stock'works" that contribute constrained autonomy to their entities.18. Network environ autonomy boundary-based partitioning of transactional stocks and flows in systems, causing environs to be isolated "small worlds" spanning intra-system organization and expressing implicate order.19. Network distributed control Expression among system components of distributed (indirect, decentralized, or remote) control at a network distance.20. Network ecogenetic coevolution system-wide coevolution of mutually implicated parts and wholes to achieve and sustain systemic coherence and life. These hypotheses are grouped into sections by shared affinities. Eight of them are identified as having special potential to: transform ecology into a systems science that integrates bipolar causality; unify the reductive and holistic modes of science; and shift the ecological worldview more towards holism. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Alpine, subalpine and boreal tree species, of low genetic diversity and adapted to low optimal temperatures, are vulnerable to the warming effects of global climate change. The accurate prediction of these species' distributions in response to climate change is critical for effective planning and management. The goal of this research is to predict climate change effects on the distribution of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), eastern USA. Climate change is, however, conflated with other environmental factors, making its assessment a complex systems problem in which indirect effects are significant in causality. Predictions were made by linking a tree growth simulation model, red spruce growth model (ARIM.SIM), to a GIS spatial model, red spruce habitat model (ARIM.HAB). ARIM.SIM quantifies direct and indirect interactions between red spruce and its growth factors, revealing the latter to be dominant. ARIM.HAB spatially distributes the ARIM.SIM simulations under the assumption that greater growth reflects higher probabilities of presence. ARIM.HAB predicts the future habitat suitability of red spruce based on growth predictions of ARIM.SIM under climate change and three air pollution scenarios: 10% increase, no change and 10% decrease. Results show that suitable habitats shrink most when air pollution increases. Higher temperatures cause losses of most low-elevation habitats. Increased precipitation and air pollution produce acid rain, which causes loss of both low- and high-elevation habitats. The general prediction is that climate change will cause contraction of red spruce habitats at both lower and higher elevations in GSMNP, and the effects will be exacerbated by increased air pollution. These predictions provide valuable information for understanding potential impacts of global climate change on the spatiotemporal distribution of red spruce habitats in GSMNP.

Black locust colonization of floodplains can exacerbate the problems associated with increasing nitrogen inputs into the riparian area and river ecosystem. In this study we compare the nitrogen budgets of two sites of floodplain ecosystem, one is colonized by invasive black locust and the other is forested by the indigenous willow species. Our data report the considerably higher N-flow rates, nitrogen storage and the faster total N-related ecosystem processes in the Robinia site in comparison to the indigenous Salix site of the study floodplain. Black locust affects the nitrogen cycle in the study riparian ecosystem through the N-fixation, high N-content litterfall and rapid litter decomposition that results in the increase of the nitrogen flow into the river and contaminates the water. Black locust appeared to reduce the conservation values of colonized areas and adjacent river. Restoration strategies that remove the black locust from invaded sites and prevent the further invasion will slow down the contamination. However, high availability of nitrogen in soil and soil degradation might have a long-term effect on floodplain ecosystem after the restoration. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ecosystems can be abstracted into models consisting of compartments containing matter or energy, transactional flows of matter or energy between compartments, inputs into the system, and outputs from the system. Although direct transactions are measurable in the field, indirect transactions have been demonstrated to have dominant effects. Integral network utility (U) is a summation of all direct and indirect net transactions in a network presented in matrix format and developed as a feature of Network Environ Analysis (NEA). While U can provide qualitative information about ecological interactions between compartments, the nonzero-sum nature of indirect net transactions has made ecological interpretation of quantitative network utility challenging. Here we aimed to examine U for nine 2- or 3-compartment ecosystem models from a throughflow perspective. For each model, we assigned inputs, outputs, and flows algebraically using flow components traceable across the model, developed corresponding flow (F) and throughflow (T) matrices based on these values, and used symbolic Matlab to calculate the net adjacent flow intensity matrix (D) and U. Substituting algebraic combinations of flow components with corresponding throughflow values allowed us to reduce elements of U to through-flows to the maximum extent possible. Models with only simple input environs were fully throughflow reducible, while models with more complex input environs exhibited one to three nonreducible elements in U. Throughflow reducibility was sufficient, but not necessary, for topological determination of ecological relations of a model, as described by sign(U). Parametrically determined elements of sign(U), along with the specific flow components influencing the sign of that element, could be readily identified based on quantitative consideration of nonreducible flow components. We provide an example showing that considering throughflow as a centrality measure can allow the identification of a quantitative basis for network synergism. By allowing identification of specific subsets of transactional flows relating to ecosystem complexity and qualitative differences between human-designed systems in the conventional industrial model and evolved ecological systems, the throughflow perspective of U opens avenues for designing more sustainable human systems. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper gives a possible explanation for how changes in holistic network organization can come to be reflected in changes in mechanistic processes thought to be under local control by organisms and abiota. Most point-contact, or node ((sic))-link (-,->), networks in science are qualitative. Their complexity is great and quantification is difficult. Networks depict wholeness and are models for holism. Mathematically, they are graphs, unweighted when unquantified, and either undirected ((sic); most social networks) or directed ((sic)->(sic); most ecological food webs). Directed graphs are digraphs. The question of this paper is, can unweighted digraphs be used to quantify mass-energy link flows? A methodology, link tracking, is developed to achieve this. Simple paths (no repeated nodes) and cycles in the network are identified. Links for different node pairs are tallied along these pathways, and used to calculate transition probabilities. These are extended to all pathways (direct + indirect) by matrix inversion; the resultant coefficients are used in conjunction with boundary inputs to generate flows. Applied to an ecological stock-and-flow model, empirical measurements lay within 2 times the corresponding link tracking values. This reinforces the intuition that digraph structure and flow function are intimately related, which is the principal general finding of the paper. However, only one "structure-based" parameterization is calculable per digraph by link tracking, whereas many "functional" empirical flows are possible. The meaning of the link tracking values is therefore to be resolved. In discussion, it is hypothesized that link tracking structural flows are basins of attraction - centrally tending mean flows around which realizable empirical flows are constrained by structure to be distributed. The methodology sheds light on previously unexplained results from an early radiotracer study of experimental ecological networks. Uses of link tracking to expand existing knowledge of food webs and other kinds of qualitative networks are considered. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Red spruce (Picea rubens Sargent) has exhibited widespread growth decline and high mortality for the last half century in the eastern United States. Good prediction of this species' distribution in relation to environmental conditions is critical for effective management. This study projects red spruce distribution in response to multiple causal mechanisms in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) of the Southern Appalachian Mountains by coupling a temporal simulation model of tree growth (ARIM.SIM) to a species distribution model (ARIM.HAB). ARIM.HAB computed habitat suitability, estimated from ARIM.SIM-generated red spruce growth, for every spatial 30 m grid cell in GSMNP. ARIM.SIM showed that different factors were responsible for habitat suitability and growth at higher vs. lower elevations. The air pollution variables (acid rain and cloud immersion frequency) caused low habitat suitability at higher elevations (1800-2028 m). Reduced air pollution but greater stress from climatic variables (high temperatures, reduced precipitation) caused medium suitability at lower elevations (1400-1600 m). And less stress from air pollution and climate variables combined with ample water to produce highest suitability at intermediate elevations (1600-1800 m). The projected range was verified with an existing geospatial database for red spruce and showed excellent correspondence with present-day distribution (AUC = 0.99, kappa = 0.87 and TSS = 0.88). This research shows that species distribution models coupled with a process-based temporal simulation models can improve the precision and accuracy of, respectively, habitat suitability and range projections for species at local scales. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We investigated the potential effects of projected climate change on red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) growth in the Great Smoky Mountains of Southeastern USA. A model called Annual Radial Increment Model (ARIM) was used to capture ecosystem complexity manifested as direct and indirect effects in multifactorial within- and across-scale interactions. The model was run under different scenarios, including projected climate change under reduced, no change, and increased atmospheric pollution. Modeled red spruce growth at end of 21st century (2080-2099) was compared to modeled growth at end of the 20th century (1980-1999). Red spruce growth at high elevations (>= 1700 m) declined by 10.8% when climate change interacted with a 10% increase in air pollution, but red spruce growth increased by 8.4% when air pollution decreased by 10%. In contrast, red spruce growth at low elevations (<1700 m) declined by 11.2% with a 10% increase in air pollution, 8.9% with no change, and 6.4% with a 10% decrease in air pollution. Our results suggest that red spruce populations at high-elevation may grow more rapidly under climate change if air pollution decreases, but populations at low-elevation may decline irrespective of air pollution changes as habitats shrink. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This is the first of two numbered papers for this Special Issue dealing with the ecological basis of environmentalism. The second follows, in a subsequent issue if not here. Patten (2013) gives a short preview of both papers.Problems of environmentalism-environmental protection, conservation, and preservation-are now widely appreciated as important to human enterprise and destiny. Called to attention by advances in descriptive empirical ecology, the new problems are too complex for this same ecology to solve without further expansion of basic knowledge. To understand how nature works two kinds of science are needed, one empirical, describing what is immediate and tangible, the other theoretical, developing first-principles understanding of what is indirect and intangible. Development of a complex systems theory based ecology is hindered by over-commitment of attention and resources to applied environmentalism. This may in its inadequacy run counter to how nature works, which could be detrimental to both humanity and nature. It is important to get the science right.As background for a revisionary hypothesis presented in Part II, five elements of basic ecology and five of applied environmentalism are here reviewed. The basic topics are ecological energetics, linear vs. nonlinear dynamics, steady vs. non-steady states, epistemic mediation, and indirect effects. The environmental topics are overpopulation, biodiversity, invasive species, sustainability, and global change. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Compartmental, or "stock-and-flow", models describe the storage and transfer of conservative energy or matter entering and leaving open systems. The storages are the standing "stocks", and the intra-system and boundary transfers are transactional "flows". Network environ analysis (NEA) provides network methods and perspectives for the quantitative analysis of compartment models. These emphasize the distinction between direct and indirect relationships between the compartments, and also with their environments. In NEA, each compartment in a system has an incoming network that brings energy or matter to it from the system's boundary inputs, and an outgoing network that takes substance from it to boundary outputs. These networks are, respectively, input and output environs. Individual pathways in environs have an identity not unlike spaghetti in a bowl, each strand of which originates at some boundary input and terminates at some boundary output. All strands originating at the j'th input collectively comprise, no matter where they terminate, the j'th output environ; similarly, all strands terminating at the i'th output comprise, no matter where they originate, the i'th input environ. Thus, any substance freely mixing in the system as a whole runs in pathways consigned to one and only one output environ traced forward from its compartment of entry, and also one and only one input environ traced backward from its compartment of exit. The environs are partition elements - they decompose the interior stocks and flow according to their input origins and output destinations. Moreover, each environ's dynamics and other systems and network properties are unique, and sum over all the environs to give the aggregate dynamics and properties of the whole. It is this composite, aggregate whole that empirical methods measure; empiricism unaided by theoretical analysis is blind to the environ pathways that actually compose the wholes.A previous study of nitrogen dynamics in the Neuse River Estuary (NRE), North Carolina, USA (Whipple et al., 2007) described within-environ transfers using a throughflow-based network analysis, NEA-T. Throughflow (T-in, L-out) is the sum of flows into or out of each compartment. This paper extends this work using a companion storage-based methodology, NEA-S, re-notated from its antecedent and originating contributions (Barber, 1978a,b, 1979; Matis and Patten, 1981). Time-series data implementing 16 seasonal steady-state network models of nitrogen (N) storage and flow in the Neuse system were constructed for spring 1985 through winter 1989 by Christian and Thomas (2000, 2003). Network topology was constant over time, but the storage and transfer quantities changed. Environ analysis of this model showed that nitrogen storage and residence times differ within the different environs composing the compartments, and moreover, that these differences originate in the system's interconnecting network as a whole. Thus, environs function within themselves as autonomous flow storage units, but this individuality derives from, and at the same time contributes to the entire system's properties. Environ autonomy is reflected in unique standing stocks and residence times, and whole empirical systems are formed as additive compositions of these. Because storage is durable and transfers ephemeral, storage environs revealed by NEA-S have more autonomy than flow environs computed using NEA-T. We quantified this autonomy by comparing the heterogeneity of extensive environs in models driven by actual inputs with intensive environs normalized to unit inputs. The former is more storage-heterogeneous than their unit reference counterparts, with dissolved nutrients NOx, DON, and NH4 exhibiting greatest heterogeneity. A previous NEA study of distributed control in this same model by Schramski et al. (2007) showed that NOx, controls the system whereas sediment is controlled by the system. In the present study, NOx dominates storage in extensive environs, and therefore, is controlling in actuality. However, in the intensive unit, environs sediment accounted for most of the storage, reflecting greater control potential. This potential is expressed by the sediment acting like a capacitor for N, seasonally sequestering and releasing this element in the role of a biogeochemical regulator. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

W. Scott Overton 1925–2012 Walter Scott Overton, Jr. was a man before his time. His life ended on 2 July 2012 in Corvallis, Oregon. In the preceding hours, the nearly full moon shone onto his bed as family members gathered in love. He was born on 3 October 1925, in Farmville, Virginia, to Walter Scott and Alice Mottley Overton. In his years, he made pioneering contributions in a range of fields, including conservation, systems and hierarchy theory in ecology, and statistical sampling theory and sampling design and application to environmental monitoring. Scott grew up with his sister, Dorothy, in the small town of Farmville during the Depression, carrying ice from the icehouse, milking the family cow, working in his father's hardware store and in the tobacco fields of kinfolk, and exploring, fishing, and hunting in the nearby fields and woods. He attended a partial year at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI), but within months after his 19th birthday, he was on a troop ship crossing the North Atlantic, dodging German U-boats and heading to war. He joined the 83rd Infantry division as a replacement and saw his first action in the Battle of the Bulge, earning a Bronze Star and his first Purple Heart. He continued with the 83rd for the last three of the European campaigns, including spearheading towards Berlin, where he was again wounded. After coming home, he returned to VPI. Aldo Leopold's Game Management was published when Scott was eight. This and other work of Leopold would begin Scott's career in wildlife biology and strongly influence his life as a hunter–conservationist and advocate for the wise use of natural resources. His Masters' thesis at VPI, under Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences professor Henry Mosby, was heavily influenced by the exciting new ideas of ecologist Paul Errington on the regulation of wildlife populations, and his research used census techniques to test these ideas on Bobwhite Quail. He later applied these census techniques, working as a wildlife biologist for the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. Once, taking his census data to the IBM office to analyze, he met a beautiful young secretary, Joann Price. They married in 1955 and started a partnership, friendship, and marriage that lasted until Scott's death 57 years later. The following winter they gave birth to their first child, Deborah Lea. Scott decided to pursue his quantitative interests further, and in 1958 the family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he studied for his doctorate in statistics at NC State under statistician Al Finkner. There, they welcomed the birth of their first son, Michael. When Scott accepted a position in the Biometrics Department at Emory University, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where their youngest child Jake was born. In 1965, Scott joined the Oregon State University faculty, accepting a joint position in Forestry and Statistics. Shortly after moving to Oregon, he and Jo bought the land of their dreams in the foothills of the Coast Range southwest of Philomath. Scott brought with him to Oregon State strong quantitative approaches and a matching conservation perspective. Mike Newton, a legendary forester, colleague, and long-time family friend recounts how Scott brought strong, new quantitative approaches to the Forestry Department. These approaches are taken for granted now, but were little known then. Scott also brought his strong conservation perspectives to a Forestry Department and industry strongly focused on timber production. Larry Hunt, a graduate student of Scott's, recalls working with him to model Tussock Moth outbreaks. Going together on a visit to view infested areas with damage from the moth, Scott remarked, “I don't see any trees that shouldn't be dead.” He recognized that such outbreaks were a natural part of the system dynamics. Larry and Scott collaborated on a controversial paper (Overton and Hunt 1974) that challenged the existing forestry management paradigms, with analyses that argued for making decisions in a strategic and landscape context. Their results argued for much longer rotation times and a fundamental change in ways to estimate net present value. This paper included one of the earliest mentions of the Spotted Owl controversy that would follow. In the same period, Scott wrote a paper with Dave Bella (Bella and Overton 1972) arguing that in the face of increasing uncertainty, environmental management should focus on preserving options and avoiding irreversibilities. A participant and senior ecological modeler in the 1970's International Biological Program (IBP), Scott had a healthy suspicion of complex, generalized models. He noted, “Current mathematical models of ecosystems are so complex and large it is extremely difficult to understand how the model behaves, much less to master the details of the coupling and interactions” (Overton and White 1981). Scott was particularly cognizant that scaling issues in science contraindicated forcing a big model into one fixed time frame, particularly as a predictor of performance at other scales. He was in the room when an oral presentation admitted that over longer simulations, due to rounding error alone, the PWNEE IBP Grassland Model covered the Western plains with several feet of buffalo dung. He saw this as a parable for how each process at each level needed to be uniquely scaled. Scott was the first one to bring Arthur Koestler's (1967) holon concept into ecology (White and Overton 1974). Holons are part/whole dualities, simultaneously elements of larger holons and made up of smaller holons. They are an open-system device for moving between levels. Scott saw dualities of many sorts; it was the way he thought. First, he was both systematic and systemic. He was systematic as he worked his way through a space, making sure that all the side branches were treated. Systemically, he would put things together to make remarkable wholes. The base duality in modeling for Scott was input versus output—with holons sandwiched in between, mediating their relationship. Input and output were integral in the modeling process itself: empirical versus theory. The inherent relationship between input, output, and state (the holons) led Scott to General Systems Theory. He consulted and came to favor George Klir's (1969) approach. We observe, and from that describe the ecosystem. But science is not stamp collecting; understanding the description leads to theory. Some of the understanding comes from the dual of looking forward versus backward. Looking forward successfully to predicted outcomes does not show that we are right, but it does make our narrative more compelling. Convincing stories create commensurate experience, the bottom line in science. There is the duality of within-scale versus across scales. Part–whole dualities came from Koestler. Scott looked at the higher duality of the structure as opposed to its environment, as an ecologist might. By emphasizing environment, he created a sort of duality of duals, the one up, the other down. Scott's genius was in the way he operationalized naturalistic versus formalistic accounts, while still moving upscale, always toward environment. From Overton's position, Stan Salthe pulled together the triadic: the thing (at scale), its mechanisms (downscale), and its environment (upscale). The natural history of the structure sees it whole. The formalistic account expresses it as a set of functioning parts. All this was captured in the FLEX/REFLEX paradigm implementing two-level hierarchical models for ecosystems. The concepts were developed by Scott in interaction with Curtis White, who programmed them. The upper, dynamically slower, level was treated holistically in FLEX. It was continuously updated. The subunits were in REFLEX; these were mechanistically modeled and, as they changed more rapidly, were updated only discretely. Scott, as a member of the IBP Coniferous Biome team, proposed completely redoing the existing biome model in progress to incorporate the new insights from Koestler's holons. Others did not see the value. They were unable to understand that if FLEX/REFLEX came up with something different they would learn the previous model was wanting. If it found only the same, then it would be a validation of the extant model. If you want a great fugue, go to Bach. If you want great hierarchy theory applied to ecology, go to Scott Overton. The early practitioners of anything often have visions not shared by others. Now that ecology is more sophisticated about levels of analysis and scaling issues, we hope that someone might turn to bringing FLEX/REFLEX up to date, given the new computational power and a more accepting audience in complexity science. Scott had an impact on others who pushed hierarchy into the consciousness of ecology. Coauthor Patten was deeply influenced by Overton's dualisms and advocacy of formalism. This led Patten et al. (1976) to the adoption of L. A. Zadeh's state-space system theory (Zadeh and Desoer 1963) and the theory of environs (Patten 1978) that would later find their place in a burgeoning network theory of environment. Many students came out of Athens, Georgia, pressing hierarchies, holons, and networks forward from Overton's influence. Allen, in the mid-1970s, did not know of Herbert Simon, Howard Pattee, Robert Rosen, or Arthur Koestler, and did not call what he was doing “hierarchy theory.” So Allen and Starr (1982) would have been very different and less successful without Overton's influence. Allen's “Toward a Unified Ecology” (Allen and Hoekstra 1992) is organized around Overton's within-versus across-scale duality. Hierarchy theory is set theoretic and uses category theory. It often uses word models. It resorts to narratives that need not be internally consistent. Meanwhile, systemic environ theory employs models that do require internal consistency. Scott was on top of both. Networks use differential equations, and follow Forrester diagrams. Network theory works its way upscale. Meanwhile, hierarchy theory reaches upscale, allowing stability of its narratives over widely different, multiple levels. Scott used both intellectual devices, making them all his own, and telling others how to do it. Two of EPA's major research successes were the national lake and stream surveys, and the environmental monitoring and assessment program. Both were built on a foundation of statistical sampling that Scott guided. Scott's work on these programs was not only instrumental in their success but resulted in changing the sampling designs of EPA's Office of Water, Regional Offices, and Office of Research and Development. Also, the Forest Service, as well as innumerable nongovernment organizations .... His footprint is all over hundreds of scientists in EPA now as his good work and thinking became the norm rather than a new direction. He will be sorely missed but always remembered. Fred Holland, another colleague involved in these efforts, echoes this sentiment: “Literally thousands of scientists in almost all state and national monitoring programs use Scott's concepts and approach.” This statistical sampling work spawned a number of innovations; in particular tessellation stratified sampling designs, a common implementation of which is the grid stratified design used widely in sampling design. There were also innovations in the use of resampling and facsimile populations to estimate the characteristics of sampling designs. Scott's idea on ways to incorporate the use of “found” data into probability sampling designs was the basis for the first journal paper of one of us (J. Overton). Throughout his career, Scott took an uncompromising approach to his work. He viewed compromise as a weakness. “Why compromise if you are right?” “I could agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.” He disdained politics, especially in science, and had little time or respect for those who advanced themselves in science by politics rather than perspicacity. He was fiercely independent, and often ran afoul of university administrators. Having faced Hitler's vaunted Wehrmacht and rolled them back to Berlin in the name of the free world—losing some of his best friends along the way—would he sacrifice his own personal and academic freedoms to placate a university administrator? He considered academics as among the last bastions of true freedom of thought, and resisted any attempts to erode these academic freedoms, while gladly wearing the consequences of maintaining these freedoms. Scott had a wide-ranging intellect and curiosity; he was always interested in new ideas. He preferred to break outmoded paradigms rather than defend them; preferred a new, unpolished idea to a well-worn accepted one. His work was strongly influenced by Prigogine's dissipative structures and Polya's plausible inference, and of course Koestler's ideas on holons. Fisher's perspective on statistical inference was a fundamental basis for Scott's approach to sampling design and statistical analysis, and he pushed his colleagues and students to consider the inferences that could be formed or the hypotheses tested from their analyses or models. He was also uncompromising and demanding as a teacher, which did not sit well with students looking for an easy degree. But he was also very generous with his time, and the best students flourished with him and many went on to prominent careers in a range of fields. While he had a reputation as a curmudgeon with some, many others spoke of his generosity with both his time and ideas and grant support, and his kindness and respect for others. Many students became ongoing collaborators. Ken Burnham coauthored papers on mark–recapture estimation under variable capture probabilities. Steve Stehman, Don Stevens, and George Weaver collaborated on sampling design issues. In his retirement years, Scott continued to work, despite much loss of vision from macular degeneration. He still enjoyed his farm with its woodlots and large vegetable garden, traveling with Jo, and the growing number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren visiting “Papa and Jo-Jo”. He remained a dedicated hunter–conservationist his entire life. His love of hunting was the upland birds and pointing dogs—from hunting bobwhites with English Setters in the rough Virginia farmlands of his youth, to Hungarian partridge with Cesky Fousky in the Palouse grasslands of his later years. Throughout his life, many benefited from his intellect and enjoyed his irreverent humor—always delivered with a twinkle in his blue eyes. Scott was an avid fan of collegiate and freestyle (Olympic) wrestling, and a staunch supporter of the OSU wrestling team. He was a good friend and confidant of the legendary and equally indomitable OSU wrestling coach, Dale Thomas, who through sheer force of will and determination, created one of the most successful wrestling programs in the USA. Steve Woods recounts a story of one of the few times he can recall the coach was speechless. In his last years, Thomas had terminal cancer, and in his usual straightforward, “get with it” way, he was organizing his own funeral. He had gathered the pantheon of Oregon State wrestling around him, to tell them their roles in the funeral—Steve would MC it, Len Kaufman would get the flowers, Olympian Jess Lewis would talk—until all aspects were planned (and by necessity delegated!). Scott listened to all this and then quipped with his trademark humor, “Dale, it sounds like everything's in place. Have you picked a date yet?” Now that we know the date of Scott's own passing, we are left with the memories of the man he was and the ways in which he touched our lives; personally—husband, father, grandfather, and beacon; professionally—ecologist, conservationist, systems scientist, statistician, and beacon. Scott Overton was a man before his time, and one to emulate in any time. We can feel ourselves missing him as we write these words of farewell.

An important question in ecology is whether the food-web structure and ecosystem functions are related. This paper provide an empirical evidence for the food-web complexity-ecosystem properties relationships using the comparative analysis of food webs in seven mountain pastoral grasslands located in the Carpathian Mountain area of the Chernivtsi Region, Ukraine. Biomass of plant functional groups; grazing intensity; richness of different functional groups of the soil microorganisms; and geographical location of the study grasslands are observed ecosystem properties. Trophic networks consisting of N food and feeding categories (nodes, compartments) joined by L food transfers (links) were constructed for each studied pasture and the following network measures of their graph characteristics ("topology") determined: food-web size (N), number of links (L), link density (LD = L/N), and connectance (C= L/N-2). Also the number of trophic classes and size of each trophic class are incorporated as the properties of the food-web architecture. Our data reveal that increase in species richness and food-web complexity increases the biomass of forbs within the study grasslands. Grazing intensity shows negative but statistically insignificant correlation with network measures. Our findings also reveal the longitudinal changes in connectance variation across the study food webs. It shows that temperature and elevation changes may also contribute toward the food-web connectance variation within the study area. Overall, our findings report plants to be the defining in network architecture. Furthermore grazing-susceptible plants show to be the driving variable in a food-web structure of the study grasslands. Our findings also reveal new aspects in behavioral patterns of food-web properties in relation to each other. Our data report link density to be the most sensitive parameter in relation to the other food-web measures. In contrast, connectance shows the least sensitivity to all other network measures, but the most sensitivity to the observed ecosystem parameters. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An unlimited variety of within- and across-scale constraints generated by self-organizing processes in ecosystems presents problems for life to solve. Solutions reached at all levels of the ecological hierarchy spawn further constraints in an endless spiral of ecosystem growth and development. Diversification, exposed to natural selection, produces differentiated function within organized wholes. This paper reviews such differentiation over the span of organizational levels from atoms and biochemical molecules to cells and their genetics, from organs and organisms to species and their phylogenetics, from populations and communities to their compositions as ecosystems, and thence to the cosmos itself. On Earth, life occurs in non-extreme and extreme environments, enabled by a biphasic adaptive radiation that drills into and fills available niche space. The first phase is diversification, which is the generation of variations. The second phase is selective differentiation that sculpts meaningful function from an endless stream of diversified, niche-filling possibilities. The paper asks, from the apparent universality of this diversification/differentiation pair, whether or not there is a force in Nature that drives the phenomenon. Diversification arises more in atomism and differentiation in holism, in a part/whole resolution between particulate and aggregate spheres of existence. Examples from Okefenokee Swamp and extreme environments exemplify the two-phase process deep sea, intertidal zones, carnivorous plants in nitrogen-poor conditions, insects in winter, and creatures of deep caves and, perhaps, subglacial lakes. Diversification (Darwin's generation of variants) and differentiation (via natural selection, and other agencies) of Nature's living forms is a prerequisite for Adaptation (our next installment) and the ultimate expression of (our final chapter) systemic Coherence. Liberation through in-system interaction, bonding, and coupling-all antithetical to degrees of freedom is the paradoxical result. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.