EBBT: Diversity
Contents
Factors
Redundancy
A system with diverse elements may introduce redundancy that supports adaption to changing conditions. (Shear McCann, The diversity-stability debate. Nature 2002, 405, 228-233)
Relationships
Number and strength of relationships between species provides greater dynamic stability than number of species. (Shear McCann, The diversity-stability debate. Nature 2002, 405, 228-233)
Hierarchy
Ecosystems are hierarchical. (Kibert, Sendzimir, Guy; Construction ecology. 2002)
Ecosystems work at different scales, and may be governed by different fundamental principles. (Vogel, Cat's paws and catapults, 1998) (Thompson, On growth and form, 1942)
Non-Competition
Species occupy different niches or avoid competition through spatial and temporal separation. (Reap, Baumeister, Bras; Holism, biomimicry and sustainable engineering, 2005)
Emergence
"... new relationships of control and constraint that emergence appears, allowing systems to become more complex. (Allen, Applying the principles of ecological emergence to building design and construction, in Construction Ecology, 2002)
Responsiveness and adaptability through "distributed and decentralised networks of feedback loops dependant on relationships between organisms, and between the living system and the rest of the environment..." (Vincent, Bogatyreva, Bogatyrev, Bowyer, Pahl; Biomimetics - its practice and theory, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 2006)
A form of self-organization (Kibert, , Sendzimir, Guy; Construction ecology. 2002)
Information
Emergent, self-organizing systems "... incorporate high amounts and transfer rates of information." (Allenby, Cooper; Understanding industrial ecology from a biological systems perspective, Total Quality Environmental Management, Spring 1994, 343-354)
Applications
Systems Approach
... in architectural design.
Facilitating Relationships
... between buildings/componentsm rather than focus on individual buildings. <see 2nd-last paragraph in Green Design vs. Sustainable Design for support>
