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The Architecture of Living Systems:
Insights from the Phytoplankton Microcosm
GRIMM, Kurt A. (UBC Earth and Ocean Sciences, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada; email: kgrimm@eos.ubc.ca)
The architecture of living systems (LS) encompasses their
structure and function. A workable Gaia paradigm correctly identifies
that processes and phenomena of LS are common across all scales of biological
organization; these tenets include the following: 1) A holon is an entity
that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some larger whole.
2) All of nature is composed of holons (atoms, molecules, cells...).
3) All holons possess four major characteristics or capacities: a) Completeness
(each holon is a functioning, identifiable entity);b) Interrelatedness
(each holon is part of a larger holon); c) Ascendence: The innovation
of new holons occurs by communion (parts coming together) and emergence
(ie. emergent properties). The hierarchical (holarchical; Wilber, 1996)
structure of LS is attributable to historical development along the
ascendant pathway (eg. symbiogenesis). d)Descendance: Holons decompose
into their constituent holons.
Emergent properties are authentic, locationless, are not deconstructable
and are mysterious (difficult if not impossible to circumscribe or measure)
but not (necessarily) mystical. Failure of many scientists to distinguish
between mysterious ("complex") and mystical phenomena in nature
commonly accompanies dismissal of the Gaia hypothesis.
Monospecific phytoplankton assemblages (MPA) in the fossil record and
in the modern ocean record many of these phenomena. Interpretation of
modern and ancient MPA indicates that sedimentation is a process mediated
by phytoplankton populations and individuals (self-sedimentation, Grimm
et al., 1997). The efficient (e.g. ungrazed) export of biosilica and
organic carbon from the photic zone to the sediments remains a poorly
understood geophysiological mechanism that has implications for phenotype
mortality, recruitment of populations, atmospheric and oceanic composition
and survival of the K/T mass extinction. As a working hypothesis, the
Tertiary cooling trend may be attributable to post-Cretaceous expansion
of the self-sedimentation phenomenon.
Presented at the Second Chapman Conference on the Gaia
Hypothesis, American Geophysical Union, Valencia Spain, June 2000.
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