Following the publication of C. S. Holling's seminal work on the
relationship between animal body mass patterns and scale-specific
landscape structure, ecologists began to explore the theoretical
and applied consequences of discontinuities in ecosystems and other
complex systems. Are ecosystems and their components continuously
distributed and do they adhere to scaling laws, or are they
discontinuous and more complex than early models would have us
believe? The resulting propositions over the structure of complex
systems sparked an ongoing debate regarding the mechanisms
generating discontinuities and the statistical methods used for
their detection.
This volume takes the view that ecosystems and other complex
systems are inherently discontinuous and that such fields as
ecology, economics, and urban studies greatly benefit from this
paradigm shift. Contributors present evidence of the ubiquity of
discontinuous distributions in ecological and social systems and
how their analysis provides insight into complex phenomena. The
book is divided into three sections. The first focuses on
background material and contrasting views concerning the
discontinuous organization of complex systems. The second discusses
discontinuous patterns detected in a number of different systems
and methods for detecting them, and the third touches on the
potential significance of discontinuities in complex systems.
Science is still dominated by a focus on power laws, but the
contributors to this volume are convinced power laws often mask the
interesting dynamics of systems and that those dynamics are best
revealed by investigating deviations from assumed power law
distributions.
In 2008, a grand conferenceon resilience was held in Stockholm,
hosting 600 participants from around the world. There are now three
big centers established with resilience, the most recent one being
the Stockholm Resilience Center, with others in Australia (an
international coral reef center), Arizona State University's new
sustainability center focusing on anthropology, and Canada's
emerging social sciences and resilience center. Activity continues
to flourish in Alaska, South Africa, and the Untied Kingdom, and a
new center is forming in Uruguay.
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