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The Central Role of Information Theory in Ecology

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Towards an Information Theory of Complex Networks

Abstract

Information theory (IT) is predicated upon that which largely eludes physics – the absence of something. The capacity for IT to portray both presence and absence in comparable quantitative fashion makes it indispensable to ecology. IT has been applied to ecology along two separate lines: (1) it has been used to quantify the distribution of stocks and numbers of organisms and (2) it has been used to quantify the pattern of interactions of trophic processes. By and large, the first endeavor has resulted in relatively few insights into ecosystem dynamics and has generated much ambiguity and disappointment, so that most ecologists remain highly skeptical about the advisability of applying IT to ecology. By contrast, the second (and less well-known) application has shed light on the possibility that ecosystem behavior is the most palpable example of a purely natural “infodynamics” that transcends classical dynamics, but remains well within the realm of the quantifiable.

MSC2000 Primary 92B99; Secondary 94A17, 90B70, 93B52, 93D21, 49Q12.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term entropy, chosen by Shannon, is retained only because of the ubiquity of its use. No relationship to thermodynamical entropy is implied thereby.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611-8525, USA

    Robert E. Ulanowicz

  2. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, MD, 20688-0038, USA

    Robert E. Ulanowicz

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  1. Robert E. Ulanowicz
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Correspondence to Robert E. Ulanowicz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medizinische Informatik und Technik, Institute for Bioinformatics and Transla, UMIT-Private Universität für Gesundheits, Eduard Wallnöfer-Zentrum 1, Hall in Tirol, A-6060, Austria

    Matthias Dehmer

  2. Queen's University Belfast, School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Cell, Center for Cancer Research & Cell Biolog, Lisburn Road 97, Belfast, BT97BL, United Kingdom

    Frank Emmert-Streib

  3. Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Department of Philosophy and Historical, Center for Computing in the Humanities, Senckenberganlage 31, Frankfurt, 60325, Germany

    Alexander Mehler

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Ulanowicz, R.E. (2011). The Central Role of Information Theory in Ecology. In: Dehmer, M., Emmert-Streib, F., Mehler, A. (eds) Towards an Information Theory of Complex Networks. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-8176-4904-3_7

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