Geophysiology

Geophysiology ("Geo", earth + "physiology", the study of living bodies) is the study of interaction among living organisms on the Earth operating under the hypothesis that the Earth itself acts as a single living organism (Gaia).

The term "geophysiology" was popularized by James Lovelock as part of his writing about the Gaia hypothesis, but it was in fact foreshadowed by many others. James Hutton (1726-1797), the "Father of Geology" in 1789, in a lecture presented on his behalf by Dr Black, had written "I consider the Earth to be a super-organism and that its proper study should be by physiology." This view that the Earth in some ways could be viewed as a superorganism was widely held in the early 19th century, and was supported even by such early biologists as Huxley (1825-1895). An analogous alternative geophysiology which views the Earth as a single cell was developed by Lewis Thomas in his "The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher" (1974).

Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), founder of biogeochemistry suggested geophysiological processes were responsible for the development of the Earth through a succession of phases where with the geosphere (of inanimate matter) develops into the biosphere (of biological life).

Frederick Clements (1874-1945) of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, who popularised the idea of vegetation climax also introduced the idea of physiology to ecology, considering the interlocking natures of plants and animals as metabolic processes within a single superorganism.

The British biologist, Arthur Tansey (1871-1955), who introduced the term ecosystem, also considered that plant communities could be considered to be boundary-less quasi-organisms, although he never extended his ideas to a planetary scale.

G. Evelyn Hutchison, studied the way logistic growth, biological feedback systems and self-regulation tended to explain many of the features of ecological systems, and Raymond Lindeman has further extended the way energy flows between various trophic levels in a "trophic-dynamic" viewpoint, further developed by Mark and Dianna McMenamin's thesis of "Hypersea", which looks at the rate of water flow through the Gaian biological environment. Tyler Volk, has also looked at trophic cycling of various elements upon which life depends, is central to an understanding of geophysiology.

Eugene Odum believed that homeostasis and stability in ecosystems was a result of evolutionary processes, and Howard Odum (his brother) extended this work to include thermodynamic effects in producing ecological "steady states". Howard Odum also extended the nature of the scale of ecosystems from that of a single pond upwards, showing that a "nested hierarchy", "heterarchy" or "holarchy" existed in which systems could be considered as elements of larger systems (leaf to tree to glade to forest to bioregion to biotic realm or biomes). From this point of view, Gaia theory and geophysiology represents the ultimate extension of these principles.

The Ecologist Michael Woodley has taken Odum's theory one step further by suggesting a fitness-stability co-selection hypothesis. According to this, not only are homeostasis and stability within ecosystems the "result" of evolutionary processes, they actually "facilitate" evolutionary processes also. ecosystems according to Woodley seem to be able to steer the evolution of their components along evolutionary trajectories that can benefit both the ecosystem as a whole and the component species. This process is best illustrated when an ecosystem begins to become saturated and the restriction in free niche space favors increases in species adaptation which will potentially increase the functional diversity within an ecosystem. This could benefit the ecosystem in terms of the invasion resistance and redundancy afforded to it. Woodley argues that ecosystems can compete with one another, and that assembly rules are the unit of selection. It is suggested that the emergence of pernicious invasive species could have been a selective benefit to competing ecosystems.

ee also

*Earth immune system
*Gaia Hypothesis
*Earth System Science

References

* Lovelock, James (2001) "Gaia: the practical science of planetary medicine" (Oxford Uni Press) ISBN 0-19-521674-1
* Volk, Tyler (1997) "Gaia's Body: Towards a Physiology of Earth" (Copernicus Books) ISBN
* McMenamin Mark A.S. & Diane L.S. McMenamin (1996) "Hypersea: Life on Land" (Columbia Uni Press) ISBN 0-231-07531-6
* Woodley, Michael (2006) "The Limits of Ecology: New Perspectives from a Theoretical Borderland" (Abramis Academic) ISBN 1-84549-166-1