Following the publication of C. S. Holling's seminal work on the
relationship between animal body mass patterns and scale-specific
landscape structure, ecologists began to explore the theoretical and
applied consequences of discontinuities in ecosystems and other complex
systems. Are ecosystems and their components continuously distributed
and do they adhere to scaling laws, or are they discontinuous and more
complex than early models would have us believe? The resulting
propositions over the structure of complex systems sparked an ongoing
debate regarding the mechanisms generating discontinuities and the
statistical methods used for their detection.
This volume takes the view that ecosystems and other complex systems are
inherently discontinuous and that such fields as ecology, economics, and
urban studies greatly benefit from this paradigm shift. Contributors
present evidence of the ubiquity of discontinuous distributions in
ecological and social systems and how their analysis provides insight
into complex phenomena. The book is divided into three sections. The
first focuses on background material and contrasting views concerning
the discontinuous organization of complex systems. The second discusses
discontinuous patterns detected in a number of different systems and
methods for detecting them, and the third touches on the potential
significance of discontinuities in complex systems. Science is still
dominated by a focus on power laws, but the contributors to this volume
are convinced power laws often mask the interesting dynamics of systems
and that those dynamics are best revealed by investigating deviations
from assumed power law distributions.
In 2008, a grand conference on resilience was held in Stockholm, hosting
600 participants from around the world. There are now three big centers
established with resilience, the most recent one being the Stockholm
Resilience Center, with others in Australia (an international coral reef
center), Arizona State University's new sustainability center focusing
on anthropology, and Canada's emerging social sciences and resilience
center. Activity continues to flourish in Alaska, South Africa, and the
Untied Kingdom, and a new center is forming in Uruguay.
