Revising the fundamentals of ecological knowledge: the biota–environment interaction

The foundations of ecological science were laid down at those times when the problem of a possible loss of local and global environmental sustainability was not as acute as it has become today. To make sure that the proposed scientific solutions to this problem are responsible, it is useful to revise the existing frameworks of environmental thought. In this paper, we present quantitative evidence suggesting that the persistence of an environment suitable for life for any appreciable period of time is only possible as long as a substantial area on the planet’s surface is occupied by natural ecosystems undisturbed by anthropogenic activities. Once the natural biotic mechanism of environmental control is destroyed, both local and global environment rapidly (over a time scale of hundreds of years) degrade to a state unfit for life, even if any direct anthropogenic environmental impact like industrial pollution is absent. It is therefore important to quantitatively assess the stabilizing impact of natural ecosystems and to determine the necessary and sufficient global area that must be exempted from anthropogenic activities and let be occupied by natural ecosystems, so that the latter have power enough to sustain the global environment in a stable life-compatible state. This urgent scientific task emerges as the major challenge for modern ecological science. We discuss how the proposed conceptual approach to the biota–environment interaction relates to the important paradigms of biological theory.