ECOSUD 2007 | 07 Conferences

ECOSUD 2007

Sixth International Conference on Ecosystems and Sustainable Development

5 - 7 September 2007
Coimbra, Portugal

Overview

The sixth International Conference on Ecosystems and Sustainable Development (ECOSUD) took place in Coimbra, organised by the University of Coimbra, the University of Siena and the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT). The Meeting, opened by the Rector of the University of Coimbra, Professor Fernando Seabra Santos, was also the occasion of the awarding of the 2007 Prigogine Medal.

The Ceremony that took place in the ancient Aula Magna of the University of Coimbra consisted in the convocation of the Academic body by the Rector. The act also involved the Director of Wessex Institute of Technology, Professor Carlos Brebbia; the Vice Rector and Co-Chairman of the Conference, Professor Joao Carlos Marques, and the recipient of the 2007 Award, Professor Robert Ulanowicz.

The Rector opened the proceedings by referring to the importance of the Prigogine Award and the influence of his ideas on modern ecosystems theory. The next speaker was Professor Brebbia who talked about the history of the Prigogine Medal and about Prigogine himself, who was Honorary Co-Chairman of some of WIT’s initiatives, including the ECOSUD conference and the launching of a scientific Journal.

Conference Topics

The numerous papers presented at the Meeting were grouped under the following topics:

Mathematical and systems modelling
Sustainable waste management
Socio-economic factors
Ecosystems modelling
Natural resources management
Environmental management
Sustainable tourism
Energy and the environment
Ecological area studies
Soil and agricultural issues

Invited Presentations

During ECOSUD, there were a number of other invited presentations, including:

“Extraction of morphological characteristics of insect specimens for automatic identification by using wavelets and self-organized map”, by T-S Chon, Pusan National University, Korea
“Emergence of novelties: a thermodynamic approach to ecosystems”, by E Tiezzi, University of Siena, Italy
“Long-term agrochemical dynamics: engineering, application and challenges of calcareous sapropel as a soil fertilizer”, by C Booth, University of Wolverhampton, UK

The Prigogine Medal

Professor Brebbia started by expressing the gratitude of the Prigogine Award Committee to the University of Coimbra for hosting the 2007 Ceremony and, in particular, to its Rector. He then proceeded as follows:

“The Prigogine Medal was established in 2004 by the University of Siena and the Wessex Institute of Technology to honour the memory of Professor Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize winner for Chemistry, and in the words of Enzo Tiezzi “the greatest scientist of the 20th Century”.

“Ilya Prigogine was born in Moscow in 1917 and obtained his undergraduate and graduate education in chemistry at the Free University of Brussels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures. The main theme of his scientific work was the role of time in the physical sciences and biology. He contributed significantly to the understanding of irreversible processes, particularly in systems far from equilibrium. The results of his work have had profound conseq uences for understanding biological and ecological systems.

“In the words of Prigogine, “The development of a theory permits us to distinguish various levels of time; time as associated with classical or quantum mechanics, time associated with irreversibility through Lyapournow function and time associated with history through bifurcation.” I believe that this diversification of the concept of time enables a better integration of theoretical ph ysics and chemistry with disciplines dealing with other aspects of nature.

“Prigogine’s ideas established the basis for ecological systems research. The Prigogine Medal to honour his memory is awarded annually to a leading scientist in the field of ecological systems.

“All recipients up to now have been deeply influenced by the work of Prigogine to the point that they could be justly called his disciples.

“The recipient of the first medal in 2004 was Professor Sven Jorgensen of the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is well known for this work in Ecology, particularly in systems modelling, ecological engineering, environmental sciences and environmental management of aquatic systems.

“Professor Jorgensen serves on many important committees and as Editor of many scientific publications. He has published more than 300 papers and 60 books. His Medal was awarded by the Rector of the University of Siena who called a special congregation in their Aula Magna.

“Professor Enzo Tiezzi r eceived the 2005 Medal at the University of Cádiz during an academic ceremony presided over by the Rector of that Institution. Professor Tiezzi studied at the University of Florence where he developed an interest in the then novel field of magnetic resonance and worked on the first MR prototype machine built at that University.

“After teaching at Cagliari University, he won a Fullbright Scholarship to Washington University, where he continued working on MR under Professor Sam Weissman of the Physics Department and Professor Bar ry Commoner of the Department of Biology. This collaboration resulted in several Seminar papers on pioneering development of MR.

“Professor Tiezzi taught Physical Chemistry at Florence for several years before being appointed at the University of Siena where he is Full Professor of Physical Chemistry. His outstanding scientific career has been matched by a strong involvement in environmental and social issues, reflecting his deepening commitment to ecology and Prigogine’s ideas. Professor Tiezzi, in addition to numerous papers, has published more than 20 books dealing with scientific topics, as well as the humanities and poetry.

“Bernard Patten, recipient o f the 2006 Medal, is Regent Professor of Ecology at the University of Georgia in the USA. He is a Systems Ecologist and Ecological Modeller interested in the applications of mathematical theory to ecosystems. He formulated a well known environmental theory called “environ theory and analysis” that permits the use of network mathematics to represent and analyse ecosystem networks.

“Professor Patten’s publications include many papers on a variety of ecological topics especially main fresh water and wetlands ecosystems. He was presented with the Medal by the Rector of the University of Tartu at a Ceremony that took place in the ancient City Hall of Tallinn.

Professor Robert E. Ulanowicz

“Today we are here to congratulate Professor Robert Ulanowicz who is to receive the 2007 Medal from His Excellency the Rector of this ancient and docta University of Coimbra.”

The next speaker, Professor Joao Carlos Marques, described the career of his friend and colleague, Professor Robert Ulanowicz:
“I was asked to present Robert Ulanowicz, who will receive the Prigogine Award in 2007.

I accepted this mission with true pleasure since
a) I admire Bob Ulanowicz’s work, which had a real impact in Science;
b) I consider myself his friend since almost ten years.

What can be said in just a few minutes about Robert Ulanowicz as a man and as a scientist? Outstanding - this word would summarize everything.

I have known Bob in first place as just a name. In fact, the ink of my PhD thesis was still fresh, some eighteen years ago, and at that time Robert ULANOWICZ was a ringing name for all those interested in Ecosystem Theory.

I only had the opportunity of knowing him years later, when he kindly accepted to receive at Maryland one of my undergraduate students, who spent some months working with him at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. Later on, Bob also accepted to co-supervise her PhD thesis, he visited us in Coimbra, and since then our encounters and scientific collaboration became regular.

At the same time, walking along the beach in Møn, when we stayed in Denmark, or in the open fields around Salzau, in Germany, swimming in the Baltic, playing pelota, or tasting a good Paccina wine, in Italy, our friendship grew.

During pleasant talks, many scientific questions that were less clear to me suddenly turned obvious. I regret not having the opportunity of flying with Bob. Indeed, Bob also flies in the strict sense. Among his many skills, he used to ensure with his small airplane many aerial connections to and from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.

Bob is indeed a marvellous man and a distinct scientist.

Professor at the University of Maryland, at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Bob is a Chemical Engineer that walked through Ecosystems Theory exhibiting his superior skills in the domain of Complex Ecology. His professional contributions were outstanding with regard to Network analysis, Information Theory in Ecology,
Thermodynamics in Ecology, and Causality in Evolving Systems.

Another area of Bob’s professional expertise is the dialogue between Science and
Religion in which, although I do not always agree with his view points, I admire his wide open intellect.

Robert Ulanowicz’s impact in Science is remarkable. It is not just a matter of scientific productivity, illustrated by more than 150 scientific papers in international journals and several books, as well as by its role as member of the editorial board of more than half a dozen international journals. In my modest opinion, his impact is most significant in changing younger people’s way of thinking Ecology by introducing systems perspective.

If you move around the world, you will currently find many more young scientists that look upon ecological problems from a new perspective, the systems perspective, and Robert Ulanowicz, through theoretical advances and tools development, is a key part of this process.”

Keynote Address - "Ecosystems Becoming"

Marijka Ulanowicz, Prof. Robert E. Ulanowicz,
Prof. Enzo Tiezzi and Prof. Carlos Brebbia

After his introduction, Professor Seabra Santos proceeded to award the Prigogine Medal 2007 to Professor Ulanowicz and asked him to give his keynote address, entitled “Ecosystems Becoming”. Professor Ulanowicz proceeded as follows:

“Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is indeed a monumental day in my life, and there are so many to whom I am grateful, that I could go on thanking friends and associates for most of my allotted time. I will instead mention but a few who are represented here today, beginning with my wife Marijka, my dear partner in life and in intellect, who stands in for my beloved family, both living and past. I am indebted as well to the previous recipients of the Prigogine Medal, to Professor Enzo Tiezzi, who is with us today and reminds us of Professors Sven Joergensen and Bernard Patten, earlier laureates who could not attend this ceremony, but who are dear friends and most esteemed collaborators. As some of you may know, these three have organized a an informal colloquium of systems thinkers who are exploring exciting new approaches to ecosystem dynamics -- a group that includes my colleagues Professor Joao Carlos Marques and Dr. Joana Patricio of the University of Coimbra.

“As Professor Brebbia mentioned in his opening remarks, the reason why we hold this ceremony each year is to celebrate the legacy of an individual who opened for us an entirely new vista on nature – Ilya Romanovich Prigogine. Perhaps more than most, I feel a particular indebtedness to Professor Prigogine, because during my graduate studies and well into my academic career, he was my primary intellectual role model – first as a chemical engineer and then as an ecologist. Now, if it should strike you that the transition from chemical engineer to ecologist is a peculiar one, the reason it was possible at all owes in large measure to Prigogine’s ideas. Here I note that Prigogine himself began as a chemist and later transitioned into several other disciplines. Of particular interest to us today is Prof. Brebbia’s statement that “Prigogine’s ideas established the basis for ecological systems research.”

“Now, these are bold words, and truth be told, if one were to ask practicing ecologists exactly how Prigogine contributed to our understanding of ecosystems, the vast majority would respond with utter bewilderment. Few ecologists even know who Prigogine was; much less could imagine how he helped us to perceive ecosystems behaviour more clearly. In my own case, however, Prigogine’s notions have been fundamental to the treatment of ecosystems dynamics that I have developed over the last 37 years. To demonstrate the centrality of Prigoginian thought to my own world view would require that I provide you with a full description of Prigogine’s philosophy of nature in addition to a complete exegesis of my own hypotheses.

“Time is not adequate to fully elaborate either of these subjects, much less both. I then beg your indulgence as I refer to Prigogine’s immense contributions in terms of well-known but superficial catch-phrases that people often apply to his work -- words like “irreversibility”, “self-organization”, “minimum entropy production”, “order through fluctuation”, and “dissipative structures”, In passing I will mention only a few sentences about each of these subjects and then concentrate on what that idea generated in my own narrative on ecosystem dynamics. I hope, thereby, to convince you that Prof. Brebbia is indeed correct -- Prigogine’s ideas do provide new approaches to ecosystems and to the world in general.

Irreversibility:

“A major hobby horse in Prigogine’s writings was irreversibility –where does it come from? Is it real or illusory? These are very important questions, because until the middle 1960’s all of physics had been predicated on reversible laws. A reversible event is one that exhibits no qualitative difference in either temporal direction. A convenient example is a video of the collision of two billiard balls. If the balls are elastic enough, one will not be able to discern whether the video is being played forwards or backwards.

“Irreversible processes became a part of scientific narrative with Carnot’s discovery of the second law of thermodynamics early in the Nineteenth Century. The second law challenged both Newtonian thinking and the atomic hypothesis, each of which is predicated upon reversibility. How could a collection of simple particles behaving according to reversible universal laws possibly produce irreversible behaviour in the aggregate? The question occupied the best minds in science throughout the middle of the 19th Century. A resolution of this paradox was finally proposed late in the century by Ludwig Boltzmann, James Clerk Maxwell and Josiah Willard Gibbs, who together constructed the discipline that came to be known as statistical mechanics. They portrayed irreversibility as a statistical feature of ensembles of many particles that is not apparent at the scale of the collision of individual particles, which take place according to the reversible laws of motion.

“Prigogine was not satisfied with this resolution. He was convinced that irreversibility was other than an epiphenomenon of large collections of bodies, and was rooted rather in the fundamental dynamics by which particles interact. He searched diligently for breaks in the symmetry of action at the microscales.

“Without commenting further on Prigogine’s directions, we note yet another possibility that transcends the microscopic. Whenever a significant number of distinguishable objects are present in a system, the combinations among them escalate so rapidly that totally unique events begin to appear that violate the continuum assumption. This argument was given rigorous form by physicist Walter Elsasser, who estimated that the overwhelming majority of stochastic events in biology are totally unique, never again to be repeated. Elsasser’s assertion sounds absurd at first, given the enormity and age of our universe, but it is surprisingly easy to defend. He noted as how there are fewer than 1085 elementary particles in the whole known universe, which is about 1025 nanoseconds old. (A nanosecond is one-billionth of a second.) Under these conditions, no more than 10110 simple events could possibly have occurred during all of elapsed physical time. It follows, then, that any event with less than 10-110 probability of re-occurring will never do so in another 14 billion years. The infinitesimal probability of its re-occurrence is simply a number outside the realm of physics.

“Now, 10110 is a genuinely enormous number. It might surprise some, however, to learn that it doesn't require Avagadro’s Number (1023) of distinguishable entities to create a potential number of combinations that exceeds Elsasser’s limit on physical events. It doesn’t require billions, millions or even thousands. In fact, a system containing about 75 identifiable components will suffice! It can therefore be stated with surpassing confidence that any event comprised randomly by more than 75 distinct elements has never occurred earlier in the history of the physical universe.

The implications of this threshold for ecology are tremendous. Because ecosystems are comprised of hundreds or thousands of distinguishable organisms, one is forced to reckon not just with an occasional unique event, but with legions of them. In ecosystems unique, singular events are occurring all the time, everywhere! Ecosystems are perfused with irreversible events that take place at the macroscopic level.

“In order to apply probability theory to chance events is necessary that tokens of those events repeat at least several times, in order to estimate a legitimate frequency. Singular events, however, occur only once, never to be repeated. Any probabilities assigned to them are merely numbers that transcend physical reality. Furthermore, such singular events constitute actual holes in the causal continuum. Like Heisenberg uncertainties or the Pauli Exclusion Principle, such singularities are necessary features of nature in their own right and not epistemological gaps requiring further theoretical exegesis.

From Being to Becoming:

“Unfortunately, Prigogine seems to have been unaware of Elsasser’s threshold and remained preoccupied with physically indistinguishable microscopic elements. Hence, the didactic presence of macroscopic irreversibility had eluded his notice. All along, irreversibility had been playing out before his very eyes. Had he been aware of it, he would likely also have recognized a subsequent dilemma – namely, that a world so saturated with novel events can overwhelm universal laws, rendering the source of order in the macroscopic realm ambiguous.

“Elsasser’s reasoning, guaranteed that determinism cannot be a universal characteristic of nature. Not that anyone is dispensing with physical laws, however. They remain inviolate. It’s just inconceivable that any combination of the four laws of force and the two laws of thermodynamics could possibly suffice to cover all the possible changes amongst a complex system with, say, 35 loci for change. Rather, any particular parametric specification of those laws will be satisfied a very large multiplicity of combinations. Hence, laws continue to constrain complex biological phenomena, but they fall short of being able to stipulate actual outcomes. The agency that determines results must involve more than just laws.

“But, despite rampant, ubiquitous singularities, it is easy to observe order in the biotic realm. Whence does it arise? Is it, as most biologists would have us believe, the work of a homunculus-like molecular agency that directs the construction of the organism? As popular as that attitude is, I would like to believe that Prigogine would have found it (as I do) philosophically insufficient. I prefer to think that he immediately would have recognized where true agency in biotic systems lies, because Prigogine had always placed emphasis on processes over objects – a bias that has made him immensely popular with the school known as “process philosophy”. He continually preached the need to shift focus “from being to becoming”.

“With all this talk about process, it behooves us to become more precise about the term. I would like to propose an operational definition as follows (Ulanowicz, in review):

A process is the interaction of random events upon a configuration of constraints that results in a non-random, but indeterminate outcome.

“To help illustrate this definition, I bring to your attention the simple, artificial example called Polya’s Urn. To perform this exercise as a physical process requires a collection of red and blue balls and an urn that initially contains one red ball and one blue ball. The urn is shaken and a ball is blindly drawn from it. If that ball is the blue one, a blue ball from the collection is added to it and both are returned to the urn. The urn is then shaken and another draw is made. If a ball drawn is red, it and another red ball are placed into the urn, etc. The first question that arises is, “After a long sequence of such draws and additions, does the ratio of red to blue balls converge to any limit?” It is rather easy to demonstrate that after, say, 1000 draws, the ratio does converge to some constant, say 0.54591, as shown in Figure 1. In other words, the ratio becomes progressively less random as the number of draws increases.

Figure 1: Polya’s Urn, Trial #1 after 100 draws.

“The fact that the ratio did not converge exactly to 0.5000 prompts a second question, namely, “What would happen if the urn were emptied and the starting configuration recreated? Would a subsequent series of draws converge to the same limit as the first?” It is easy to demonstrate that it would not. After 1000 draws the second ratio might approach a limit in the vicinity of 0.19561 (Figure 2.) The Polya process is clearly indeterminate.

Figure 2: Polya’s Urn, Trial #2 after 100 draws.

“One eventually discovers that the ratio of balls becomes progressively more constrained by the actual sequence of draws that have already occurred. After still more experimentation, it gradually becomes clear that the limiting ratio for any long sequence of draws and replacements is uniformly distributed between zero and one, i.e., the ration can approach any rational fraction.

“For later reference, I note three important features of this artificial and simplistic process:

1. It involves chance.

2. It involves self- reference.

3. The history of draws is crucial to any particular series.

“We note further that some histories which converge to limits near zero or one are difficult to distinguish from mechanical, law-like dynamics exhibiting only occasional noise (Figure 3):

Figure 3: Polya’s Urn, Trial #3 after 100 draws.

“Such mimicry raises the possibility that scientific laws may have evolved as limiting forms of earlier, less constraining processes.

Autocatalysis & Self-Organization:

“So our focus now rests upon processes rather than laws. Still, Polya’s Urn, while instructive, seems too simplistic and artificial. The transition to natural examples of processes would not have been a problem for Prigogine, because the notions of self-organization and autocatalysis were central to his lexicon.

“It is important to note that autocatalysis is not a law, but rather a process, or more accurately a configuration of processes. Furthermore, Gregory Bateson has suggested that natural processes could impart order to stochastic affairs. He noted in particular how the outcome of random noise acting upon a feedback circuit is generally non-random. I, therefore, draw your attention to Prigogine’s favourite form of feedback – autocatalysis. By "autocatalysis" we mean here any instance of a positive feedback loop wherein the direct effect of every link on its downstream neighbour is positive (Figure 4.)

Figure 4: A three-component autocatalytic configuration of processes.

“An illustration of autocatalysis at work in ecology is the community that forms around the aquatic macrophyte, Utricularia. All members of the genus Utricularia are carnivorous plants. Scattered along its feather- like stems and leaves are small bladders, called utricles (Figure 5a.) Each utricle has a few hair- like triggers at its terminal end, which, when touched by a feeding zooplankter, opens the end of the bladder, and the animal is sucked into the utricle by a negative osmotic pressure maintained inside the bladder. In nature the surface of Utricularia plants is always host to a film of algal growth known as periphyton. This periphyton serves in turn as food for any number of species of small zooplankton. The autocatalytic cycle is closed when the Utricularia captures and absorbs many of the zooplankton (Figure 5b.)

(a) (b)

Figure 5: (a) Stem of Utricularia with closeup of utricle. (b) The autocatalytic processes inherent in the Utricularia system.

“The key feature of autocatalysis is that it can exert selection pressure upon any of its components or their attendant mechanisms. Any change in a characteristic of a component that either makes it more sensitive to catalysis by the upstream member, or a better catalyst of the element that it catalyzes, will be rewarded. Other changes will be neutral at best, but are more likely to be decremented by the feedback. In particular, this selection will re-enforce changes that bring more material or energy into any participating element, resulting in what can be called (in Newton’s word) “centripetality” (Figure 6.)

Figure 6: Autocatalysis induces centripetality.

“It is difficult to overstate the contribution of centripetality to the phenomenon of life. Conventional Darwinism conveniently overlooks the role of “striving” in evolution. All these various organisms are engaged in an epic struggle, competing with each other, red in tooth and claw. But what accounts for this drive? In other words, how do we demystify Darwinism? Here’s what Bertrand Russell had to say on the topic:

“Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself and its seed....We may regard the whole of evolution as flowing from this "chemical imperialism" of living matter.” (Emphasis mine)

“It is clear that by “chemical imperialism” Russell is referring to centripetality, and he correctly places it at the very core of evolution.
“Conventional Darwinism, to the contrary, points to competition as the crux of evolution. But in the new framework we see competition as subsidiary to centripetality (which, recall, rests upon notions of mutuality.) Thus, we recognize that competition cannot exist in the absence of mutual beneficence at some lower level.
“Regard, for example, the sequence in Figure 7. In the second configuration element D appears spontaneously in conjunction with A and C. If D is more sensitive to A and/or a better catalyst of C, then the ensuing dynamics of centripetality will so favour D over B, that B will either fade into the background or disappear altogether. That is, selection pressure and centripetality can guide the replacement of elements.

Figure 7: Centripetality induces competition

“Of course, C could be replaced by E and A by F, so that in the long run, the lifetime of the autocatalytic configuration can exceed that of any of its components or their associated mechanisms. Such top-down influence decidedly violates the Newtonian axiom of closure – the assumption that material and mechanical causes acting together account for all of reality. For that matter, the other assumptions that have guided science over the past 300 years are likewise contradicted by ecosystem behaviour: Earlier, I indicated how determinism cannot pertain to complex systems. The uni-directional or asymmetric nature of autocatalysis makes a system highly irreversible. The fact that the development of each component is influenced strongly by its co-participants renders all system elements highly co-dependent over time, so that no organic complex is fully amenable to atomistic decomposition. Finally, no particular process is universal; each is circumscribed in time and space and subject to influence from processes at other levels.

Minimum Entropy Production:

“The compelling properties of autocatalysis all suggest that the process is absolutely central to the development of living systems. In fact, it is possible to quantify the degree to which autocatalysis actively affects a system. The measure is called the system’s ascendency. Unfortunately, time does not allow me to detail how ascendency is calculated, but the net effect of autocatalysis is to emphasize those elements that participate in the process over and above non-participants.

“The tendency for autocatalysis to exert growing influence upon living systems prompted me to formulate the progression as a phenomenological principle:

“In the absence of major perturbations, ecosystems have a tendency over time to take on configurations of greater ascendency.”

“One notices immediately how this statement resembles a variational principle, i.e., a maximum/ minimum, or goal-seeking rule. The similarity is not surprising, given my early preoccupation with Prigogine’s thesis that systems near equilibrium produce entropy at a minimal rate. The idea that attributes of the whole system could influence behaviours at lower scales has always fascinated me.

“But ecosystems are not merely physical systems, and my hypothesis is not strictly a variational statement, as reflected by the inclusion of the word “tendency”. Living systems possess distinctly non-mechanical attributes, so that directionality in life is almost certain to be looser than the greedy goal-seeking that characterizes mechanical systems.

“As it turns out, increasing ascendency is only half of the story. The countervailing half is the second law tendency for systems to degrade and dissipate over time. Most fortunately, the disorder inherent in the second law can be quantified using exactly the same mathematics (information theory) that was used to formulate ascendency, and I have called this complement the system “overhead”.

Order through fluctuations:

“The common observation is that the agencies that build order are openly antagonistic to the tendency to dissipate structure – the yin and yan of nature. This is not the full picture, however, because what appears to be antagonism at one scale can appear mutualistic at another. Prigogine implicitly recognized this Hegelian aspect of the natural dialectic in his theory of “order through fluctuations”. In his mathematical models of bifurcated dynamics, Prigogine suggested that macroscopic form could depend strongly upon the history of microscopic fluctuations that have impinged upon a system while it had been in a dynamically metastable state. Restating his conclusion backwards – increasing order becomes impossible without the action of stochastic, otherwise disordering events.

“In Prigogine’s model one perceives an inchoate version of the full scenario of development in living entities as we now envision it: Systems are constantly being impacted by a veritable rain of singular events, which can occur at all levels of scale. Feedback controls, however, are also at work at all levels to ameliorate the impacts of almost all of them. Only a very small minority of aleatoric disturbances will succeed in altering the system; but the controlling feedbacks are usually able to contain these impacts. In exceedingly rare instances, complex disturbances will match hand- in- glove with vulnerable systems junctures to drive the system into a new, emergent mode of behaviour.

Dissipative structures:

“The emphasis that Prigogine gave to processes draws us out of our obsession with the omnipotence of laws. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly obvious that not all agencies behind change in living systems are objects. The intricacies of autocatalysis shift the spotlight to configurations of processes as the dominant causalities that sustain life. This view owes much to Prigogine’s notion of dissipative structures, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1977.

“To drive home the importance of how action can be elicited by patterns of processes, I cite the example of a deer that has just been shot by a hunter. Prof. Tiezzi (2006) in his recent book, “Steps towards an Evolutionary Physics”, asks what is missing in the dead deer that had been present in the minutes before its demise? Its mass, form, bound energy, genomes -- even its molecular configurations -- all remain virtually unchanged immediately after death. What had ceased with death and is no longer present is the configuration of processes that had been coextensive with the animated deer – the very agency by which we recognize the deer as being alive.

From Being to Becoming (redux):

“Earlier, I commented on how ecological behaviours violate each and every one of the five postulates of Newtonian dynamics that have supported science in one form or another over the past three hundred years. With our emphasis now on processes and configurations of processes, as initiated by Prigogine, we are forced to seek a new set of fundamental assumptions. We are driven to formulate an ecological metaphysics, if you will.

“Obviously, these new axioms must be related to the notion of process as I have defined it, and here I ask you to recall the three attributes of that simple example, Polya’s Urn – namely, chance, feedback and history.

Concerning chance, our first assumption is to recognize it as an ontological reality and not simply as an illusion, i.e., nature is causally open. It exhibits;

1. Radical Contingency: Nature in its complexity is rife with singular events.

“Although the destructive effects of chance are usually what is immediately apparent, one must never lose sight of the requirement that true change can never arise in a world that lacks contingent events.

“Opposing the degradation by chance action is the constructive process of autocatalysis, a particular form of self-influence, which works to impart form and pattern to nature. Accordingly, our second postulate focuses upon feedback as the dominant agency that builds and sustains living systems.

2. Self-Influence: A process in nature, via its interaction with other natural processes, can influence itself.

“This assumption releases us from the requirement of having to cast all explanation in a reductionistic format.

“Thirdly, we recognize that the interaction between chance and feedback leads nowhere without some record of past system configurations. That is, as Darwin posited, living entities must possess a

3. History: The effects of self-influence are usually constrained by the culmination of past such changes as recorded in the configurations of processes and matter in living entities.

“In today’s scientific milieu, dominated as it is by reductionistic thought, we immediately think of DNA and similar material forms as the repositories of history. As we saw with our remarks on competition, however, the first recordings of organic history were more likely written into the topologies of long-lived interacting processes.

Humanity’s Dialogue with Nature:

“Upon these three axioms one can build in logico-deductive fashion a full narrative of living behaviours. I have called the ensuing construct “process ecology”. Because each of the three postulates contradicts one or more of the classical Newtonian assumptions, it should come as no surprise that process ecology departs radically from conventional constructs, such as neo-Darwinism. The actions I have described, such as internal selection, top-down influence and emergence, are outright heresies to the received wisdom, but they rest quite comfortably within the ecological metaphysic.

“I will not pretend that if Ilya Prigogine were in the audience today, that he would applaud all that I have suggested. Those of you who remember him will certainly recall his ardour in rebutting anyone who would suggest the slightest deviation from the pathway he believed nature was following. Doubtless, he would be livid at some of the departures I have made. None of which detracts from the enormous debt that I and my fellow systems ecologists owe him for pioneering such bold and radical new approaches to the phenomenon of life.

“Prigogine subtitled what was perhaps his most famous book, “Man’s (sic) New Dialogue with Nature”. There is no mistaking that his challenge to the conventional metaphysics that had bound humankind with the chains of all-determining physical laws truly liberated us to adopt a wholly new perspective on the natural world. His ideas also changed attitudes in a way that could lead to a healthier, more constructive dialogue between C.P. Snow’s two cultures – the sciences and the humanities. His ruminations on the production of entropy even provide a glimmer of hope that the final scenario for the cosmos might be other than what has been termed “heat death”, and thereby rescue us from the prevailing “cosmology of despair”. His focus on process and activity was a welcome diversion from what Hans Jonas has described as an “ontology of death”.

“But in the end it must also be said that the portal to hope lies not with Prigogine’s beloved physics, nor within the chemistry for which he was lauded. It now appears that hope truly looms into view only after one has passed through the gateway that we call ecology.”

Professor Ulanowicz’s address was very well received by the large audience, consisting not only of the conference participants, but also of many academic members of the University of Coimbra.

Close of the Conference

The Meeting closed with a recital by the University Choir after which all participants were invited to a reception in the Senate Rooms. This part of the University of Coimbra dates from the XVIII Century and the rooms are lavishly decorated. The Aula Magna or Sala dos Capelos is particularly renown for its beautiful tiles and the richly decorated ceiling. The room is used for University of Coimbra academic meetings and only seldom hosts other functions such as the Prigogine Medal Award.

The University of Coimbra is the most prominent institution in Portugal and one of the oldest in Europe. It was confirmed by the Pope in 1290 and moved for a time between Coimbra and Lisbon until 1537 when it was definitely established in the former city. The oldest part of the University is located in the “University Plateau” where the main Campus is located. It is there that the Aula Magna is situated.

Conference Dinner

The banquet took place in an outstanding hotel called “Quinta das Lagrimas” built in the XVII Century. Tradition tells us that the name of the place (Mansion of Tears) is because it was there that the beautiful Ines, beloved of Prince Pedro, was assassinated on the orders of his father, the King in a vain attempt to end their love affair. By then, however, Pedro had secretly married Ines. On his ascension to the throne, Pedro by then a widower, decided to enthrone Ines as his Queen Consort. He had her body exhumed, set it on the throne and made all noblemen kiss her withered hand as an act of submission. A spring in the gardens of the hotel is said to have appeared on the spot where Ines was assassinated.

The excellent food during the banquet was accompanied by good regional white and red wines. The dinner was served in one of the beautifully decorated rooms of the old mansion. After dinner, the participants proceeded to a large room where they were entertained by a folkloric group of Coimbra. This group is run by the Students’ Union and aims to preserve the traditions of Coimbra and its surrounding areas, performing traditional dances and songs in typical regional costumes.

Their excellent singers and dancers dressed in rich and carefully researched costumes added to the enjoyment of the evening. The participants were delighted to be able to learn more about the rich culture of Coimbra and the more courageous participated in the dance!

Next Meeting

The success of the Meeting will ensure that the Conference will be reconvened in 2009, the date and location of which will shortly be announced.

Publication of Papers

The proceedings of Ecosystems and Sustainable Development VI, 592pp (ISBN: 1-84564-84564-088-0) are available in hard back from WIT Press priced at £195/US$385/€292.50. Orders can be placed by telephone: +44 (0) 238 029 3223, fax: +44 (0) 238 029 2853, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or via the WIT Press web site at www.witpress.com

Papers from the conference will also be hosted online at the WIT eLibrary as Volume 105 of WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment (ISSN: 1743-3541). For more details visit the WIT eLibrary at www.witpress.com

Organisers

	Wessex Institute of Technology, UK
University of Siena, Italy
University of Coimbra, Portugal

Sponsor

WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment

Conference Chairmen

E Tiezzi
University of Siena, Italy

J C Marques
University of Coimbra, Portugal

C A Brebbia
Wessex Institute of Technology, UK

S Jorgensen
University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Denmark

International Scientific Advisory Committee

S Bastianoni
University of Siena, Italy

C Booth
University of Wolverhampton, UK

J Brandt
University of Roskilde, Denmark

T Chon
Pusan National University, Korea

B Fath
Towson University, USA

D J Hutch
US Environment Protection Agency, USA

P D Jensen
Agricultural University of Norway, Norway

B-L Li
University of California, USA

U Mander
University of Tartu, Estonia

N Marchettini
University of Siena, Italy

M B Neace
Mercier University, USA

S N Nielsen
Danish Uni. of Pharmaceut. Sci, Denmark

B Patten
University of Georgia, USA

Y Pykh
INENCO Centre, Russia

C Rossi
University of Siena, Italy

Y Svirezhev
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany

A Tadeu
University of Coimbra, Portugal

W Timmermans
Alterra, The Netherlands

Wessex Institute of Technology