Robert Edward Ulanowicz ( ) is an American theoretical ecologist and

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

of Polish descent who in his search for a ''unified theory of ecology'' has formulated a paradigm he calls ''Process Ecology''. He was born September 17, 1943 in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

, Maryland. He served as Professor of Theoretical Ecology at the

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science With 1925 origins as a research station on Solomons Island, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) is the only scientific research center within the University System of Maryland. In 1973 it became the Center for Envi ...

Chesapeake Biological Laboratory The Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) is a marine science laboratory on the Chesapeake Bay in Solomons, Maryland, and it is the oldest state-supported marine laboratory on the East Coast of the U.S. It was founded in 1925 in a small waterma ...

Solomons, Maryland Solomons, also known as Solomons Island, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Calvert County, Maryland, United States. The population was 2,368 at the 2010 census, up from 1,536 in 2000. Solomons is a popular weekend ...

until his retirement in 2008. Ulanowicz received both his BS and PhD in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials in ...

from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

in 1964 and 1968, respectively. Ulanowicz currently resides in

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, and the largest city in North Central Florida, with a population of 141,085 in 2020. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, which had a population of 339,247 in ...

, where he holds a Courtesy Professorship in the Department of Biology at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. Since relocating to Florida, Ulanowicz has served as a scientific advisor to the Howard T. Odum Florida Springs Institute, an organization dedicated to the preservation and welfare of Florida's natural springs.

Overview

Ulanowicz uses techniques from

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

and

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...

to study the organization of flows of energy and nutrients within ecosystems. Although his ideas have been primarily applied in ecology, many of his concepts are abstract and have been applied to other areas in which

flow network In graph theory, a flow network (also known as a transportation network) is a directed graph where each edge has a capacity and each edge receives a flow. The amount of flow on an edge cannot exceed the capacity of the edge. Often in operations re ...

s arise, such as

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

and

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

. Though Ulanowicz began his career modeling ecological systems using differential equations, he soon reached the limits of this approach. Realizing that any ecosystem is a

complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...

, he decided to move away from what he saw as the inappropriate use of the

reductionist Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical p ...

approach, and instead began to work towards development of theoretical measures of the ecosystem as a whole, such as ascendency. Gradually, he came to appreciate the ecosystem behavior is not simply a matter of "mechanics with noise," but rather an intricate interplay between opposing tendencies—autocatalytic-like self-organization and entropic decay. This natural conversation could be followed quantitatively using information-theoretic measures applied to networks of trophic processes. Following

Gregory Bateson Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician, and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. His writings include ''Steps to ...

, Ulanowicz points out how ecology differs significantly from

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

in that constraints that are absent play important roles in ecosystem dynamics. He also argues how the homogeneous laws of physics only constrain the behavior of very heterogeneous ecosystems but are incapable by themselves of determining outcomes. He goes so far as to suggest that an entirely new metaphysics, which he calls ''Process Ecology'', is required to understand complex living systems. One pertinent discovery by Ulanowicz was that ecosystems do not progress to maximum efficiency. Ecosystems that channel too much activity along the most efficient pathways do so at the expense of redundant, less-efficient processes that can function to take over vital activities in the event that the more efficient processes are disrupted. Ecosystems that persist are those that achieve a balance between the mutually exclusive attributes of efficiency and reliability. This result from nature poses a significant challenge to mainstream economics, wherein market efficiency is held to be the ''sine qua non''.

Publications

Ulanowicz has authored or co-authored over two hundred articles in theoretical ecology and related areas of philosophy, especially those dealing with

autocatalysis A single chemical reaction is said to be autocatalytic if one of the reaction products is also a catalyst for the same or a coupled reaction.Steinfeld J.I., Francisco J.S. and Hase W.L. ''Chemical Kinetics and Dynamics'' (2nd ed., Prentice-Hall 199 ...

and

causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cau ...

. He has authored three books to date. *''A Third Window: Natural Life Beyond Newton and Darwin'', Templeton Foundation Press (2009) ()--A description of Ulanowicz's new metaphysics *''Ecology: The Ascendant Perspective'', Columbia University Press (1997) () - Causality in living systems, written for a more general audience *''Growth and Development - Ecosystems phenomenology'', Springer (1986) () - A more technical exposition of Ulanowicz's early ideas

Palms

While living in Maryland, Ulanowicz took up a hobby of cultivating and casually breeding cold-hardy palm trees; he drew attention for a Windmill palm on Solomons Island that grew taller than the one-story building it was planted outside.

Awards

Ulanowicz was named the recipient of the 2007 Ilya Prigogine Medal for outstanding research in ecological systems. He participated in the

Stock Exchange of Visions {{Unreferenced, date=August 2007 The Stock Exchange of Visions is a project initiated in 2006 by Fabrica, Benetton's research center. It gathers visionaries from diverse nationalities and cultures, who hail from a wide range of specialties, to prov ...

project in 2007. Ulanowicz was a featured speaker at the 2009 Ill STOQ International Conference entitled "Biological Evolution: Facts and Theories," which discussed the impacts and effects of the publication of ''

On the Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'' by

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

References

External links