INTRODUCTION

Life on earth is believed to have arisen a single time, during a single period of earth's history, and to have continued to grow and reproduce through the subsequent four plus billions of years, to differentiate through continuous and punctuated speciation, to develop broad based biomes and domains of living systems in the biosphere of earth today. The main form of transmission of the information needed for the reproduction of life on earth is genetic transmission, and there is a fundamental isomorphism of genetic identity of all life on earth--there are not two or more different kinds of genetic systems operating, and presumably, this genetic unity puts all life forms on earth upon a single family tree. In other words, humans are distantly related to every other form of life occurring on earth.

This form of genetic transmission is known as vertical transmission, and vertical transmission refers to the process of reduplication of genetic information from one generation to the next. In bacteria and all prokarya, this form of transmission is through simple binary fission, an almost automatic process that occurs on an hourly cycle. Presumably, this form of transmission predominated for more than the first 3 billion years of life on earth, and for the first billion or so years, it was primarily driven by chemosynthetic pathways of energy production and conversion from mineral resources. During this time, we probably would have witnessed the first trophic divisions of living systems between primary producers and consumers that fed on the producers, the by-products of the producers, and the detritivores or decomposers, that fed on the remains of both the consumers and the producers.

At some point, single celled colonies photosynthetic algae developed that could derive food directly from the energy of the sun, presumably in surface zones of the open oceans. We must presume, by this period of time, life on earth in primitive form was established around the world in the oceans.

In eukarya and multi-cellular eukaryotic organisms, this form of transmission occurs basically through the process of mitosis, or complex stadial cell division on basically a 24 hour cycle. Single celled flora and fauna, not unlike diatoms and plankton that we find on the surface of the oceans, would have been the consequence of this development. Presumably, these eukaryotic forms of single celled organisms may have been early photosynthesizers, having possibly incorporated photosynthetic algae into their own cells on a symbiotic and permanent basis through an early form of horizontal transmission.

For most multi-cellular organisms, special adaptations of cloning and sexual reproduction has greatly accelerated evolutionary development, and this presumably occurred approximately 600 million years ago associated with the Burgess Shale and what is known as the Cambrian Explosion that bears evidence of the sudden emergence of complex multi-cellular life forms across all the major Kingdoms and Phylums that we still find today.

Primitive multi-cellular systems must have been around well before the markers of the Cambrian Explosion, and we can speculate on an earlier period during which living systems developed from single-celled colonies to specialized organic structures truly required of multi-cellular life forms, and this is presumably associated with the process of cellular mitosis and a-sexual reproduction or cloning of multi-cellular organisms. The jump from a colony of single celled organisms, even a mushroom or a sea weed, to a true mulicellular organism like a hydra or other phytoplankton. Apparently, one of the most primitive multi-cellular organisms is the jelly-fish. That these are free-floating and basically directionless in the currents of the sea indicates that early independent organisms may have developed in such a manner.

A case might be made for the critical influence of forms of horizontal genetic transmission having had possibly revolutionary effects in the saltational "jumps" that living systems made, from an early archaeo-bacterial form, to trophically differentiated and interdependent forms of specialized bacteria, to algae, and then to eukaryotes. Horizontal transmission is known to occur in soil bacteria. It is also known to occur by viruses, and apparently viruses have been associated with living systems upon earth almost from the beginning of its protobiotic emergence.

The basis of biological systems theory rests in the recognition that life arose and always existed within a special set of environmental parameters to which it was orginally adapted, and that subsequently influenced the course of evolutionary development of all life in critical ways. Living systems at all levels, and as a total system, always interacted with its environmental surroundings in ways unique to the definition of life, and this constituted a form of non-linear control function that led to changes both in the patterning of life and in the patterning of the earth's environment that hosted life. In consideration of biological systems, it is important to recognize that all such systems always cooccur simultaneously upon three levels of patterning. On the microscopic level there are complex and vital biochemical interactions that take place with all living systems and that involve the capture, transfer and storage of heat energy in bonds. This is as true for one celled microbes as it is for multi-cellular life forms.

For all living systems, as well, there is a level of individual-populational organiismic interaction that defines the organism both as a separate entity or being in the world, and as part of an on-going system of reproduction that involves social aspects of populations. We may distinguish mono-cellular life forms from multi-celled organisms, but either way the functional patterning and imperative of the independent organism in its struggle for survival and reproductive success remains basically the same. For all living systems as well, there is a third level of patterning that is important to consider and that involves the biotic-abiotic reorganization of the natural environment that is critical and conducive to living systems and their evolutionary development. On this third, macro-scopic level, we can hypothesize that living systems form complex self-organizational biotic surroundings for one another that affects evolutionary development of systems. When we consider living systems, we must consider such systems simultaneously from all three levels of processural patterning and interaction, and the feedback that occurs between these levels. What is clear from this consideration of biological systems theory is that life on earth has evolved at all three levels concurrently and has undergone numerous changes over time, but there as been an unbroken chain of continuity of such systems from its first biogenesis. This continuity has entailed that all living systems are interrelated and minimally integrated to one another, however remotely, and all living systems share a common comprehensive biospheric environment for their articulation and patterning.

It would be wonderful to write a completely comprehensive theory of biological systems in just a few sentences, but biological systems resist the process of generalization at every level and turn of the resolving knob. The closest we can come is the now classic theory of evolution. We can say that biological evolution is driven by speciation that is the result of natural selection that takes the form of continuous trait-modification. And it is in the problem of defining natural selection that we can find the evolutionary implications of ecological theory most strongly focused. We can identify patterns of trait selection and various forms of populational selection that underlie speciation as the continuous operation of complex systems of biology upon many levels of integration, always within bio-geophysical surroundings that are somehow both constraining of and constrained by such patterns. Organisms must adapt to changing circumstances, or pay the price of failing the evolutionary game altogether. Nature is harsh in its demands, but not cruel thereby. Death follows life, and is the price all organisms must ultimately pay for the opportunity to live in the first place.

If we are to comprehend biological systems more fully and from a systematic perspective, we must take at least several kinds of analysis simultaneously as involving a special form of integration that is not found in non-biological systems. If we are to ask the question of what constitutes "life" in a general sense, we must understand that it is difficult in a general definition of life to separate one form or manifestation of living systems from others to which it may be interconnected and interdependent in history and function. "Life" thus embraces that "web" of life forms that interact at numerous levels and in different ways to create the common framework by which we understand biological systems.

In other words, to consider biological systems theory, we must understand it as something that embraces the concept of a total or global living system that was in its essential form in place from the beginning. Such a system arose stochastically and continues to evolve by a means that is essentially a matter of blind chance, thus it is a complex self-organizing system and many of its epigenetic patterns are chaotic. It has increased over time in size and complexity into a total biosphere that encompasses most of the habitable areas of the earth's surface. It embraces and encompasses all component subsystems at every level. In other words, all organisms and all areas where life is found, are but parts of a larger biological mosaic of living systems. In the analysis of living systems at any level, we cannot separate a biological organism or some "entity" (a "species," a population, a community) from its surroundings, and biological systems always occur in surroundings that are defined by certain special and general characteristics.

We may thus venture a definition of a biological system as being any living system that is capable of surviving and reproducing itself in relation to its natural surroundings within which that system arose or was transplanted. All such systems interact with their surroundings in complex ways, and the consequences of these interactions affect the outcomes for both the system and its surroundings.

1. Living systems have evolved towards more complex and elaborated patterns of organization at all three levels of analysis (i.e., the microscopic, metascopic and macroscopic)

2. Living systems tend naturally as self-organizing systems to grow in scale, size, and complexity of pattern until supercritical states are reached. A supercritical state can be defined as a state of supersaturation of coevolutionary living systems in its biotic habitat, at whatever level or scale we wish to work on.

3. Systems that coevolve in any dimensions toward greater size or complexity, often expressed in terms of trait-complex hypertrophism, find it more difficult than average to evolve back to simpler and smaller systems. Such systems reach what can be called and ecological cul-de-sac and an evolutionary precipice.

4. In a system that has developed towards complex states of equilibrium, individual organisms or populations can be lost and easily replaced without disturbing greatly the overall functional stability of the system.

5. The nature of the ecological relationship of such coevolutionary systems in the long run with their biotic-abiotic surroundings will change fundamentally, such that with long-term oversaturation of such systems there will arise increasing competition and this will lead to destructive alterations of the system resulting in widespread negative selection.

6. In a supersaturated system, density dependent relationships can create resonance patterns of change between subsystems that may be extremely fine-tuned and potentially catastrophic in terms of their butterfly effects. They can result in what can be called "critical events" that destructively return the entire system to a lower level of basic integration. Such critical events in biological terms would entail mass destruction of ecosystems and even mass extinction of multiple species.

7. Such systems therefore oscillate at many levels between an abiotic state of a virtual ecological vacuum, on one hand, and a biotic state of super-equilibrium or a supersaturated system. The pathway between a general condition of ecological vacuum and a saturated biotic system is usually gradual and lengthy, whereas the trajectory from an oversaturated biotic system back to a state of relative abiotic ecological vacuum may be rather sudden and precipitous. This makes for a pattern effect noticeable in the natural history record referred to as "punctuated equilibrium."

In a biological nutshell, we may say in general that evolutionary development is historically and biologically irreversible. Systems tend towards increasing differentiation, and once differentiated, cannot as such return simply to more basic states except through negative selection. It can be said that increasing intraspecific competition in the short run leads ultimately to either extinction, dispersive or disruptive cladogenesis, and to interspecific competition in the long run.

The object of this digression is not to elaborate a model of bio-genesis. It is possible that we may never completely understand how life originated on earth. It is rather to open a forum for inquiry into the possibilities and "paradigmatic" range of possibilities we might pose in regard to the development of conjectural hypothesis and somewhat counter-factual histories of the development of first life, explained of course from a systems perspective that argues for stochastic self-organization, or "spontaneous origination" and not from any form of predetermination or "supernatural creation".

The most noteworthy characteristic of the earth is the vast abundance of water. Water in some abundance was a precursor to the development of proto-biotic systems. Water may not have originally been in the kind of abundance we see today, but it had to be sufficient enough and probably pure and salty enough, to become the basis of life. We cannot imagine a sea that is half methanol and half water as the substrate of life. I think the original ocean had to be a little larger than a set of tide-pools on a beach or even a chain of crater lakes where extinct volcanoes once roared.

The first question to be answered then is how was water first created in such abundance on earth, and what would have been the resulting atmospheric effects of the formation of large quantities of water on the earth's surface. The pathways that may have led to this occurrence are not known exactly, and may in fact have been quite complex by themselves.

Photosynthesis in algae does not appear to the most primitive form of prokaryotic life, even if it is perhaps the earliest or most primitive form of "green" life we have. This brings to question the possibility of life deriving energy from alternative sources than solar light, and only after first originating then "discovering" light in a kind of early "photosynthetic revolution." Evidence from undersea tubules that support rich living formations in the near complete absence of light suggest that this kind of formation was possible. Evidence of extremophiles existing in hot-springs or geysers at temperatures normally beyond that most life-forms can tolerate suggest the possibility of life forming originally in craters or at the edges of heat vents in a world presumably more volcanically active than today. I would think if some form of vulcanism is the most plausible explanation for the early formation of pre-biotic systems, then this vulcanism had to carry on in a relatively stable and steady-state manner in contexts that were not overly disruptive or explosive. We can find numerous instances of geo-thermal systems on the earth where enough heat can be produced in the vicinity of stable water sources to create a sufficient condition for the formation of living systems.

Alternative to heat energy produced by thermal vents, whether submarine or terrestrial, would be the reliance on some form of chemical energy--chemical energy that was available in either organic compounds or inorganic compounds in sufficient quantities to sustain indefinitely processes of basic replication. We are talking metabolic and catabolic reactions result in the formation of complex organic chemical molecules, and in their reformation on a continuous, periodic basis.

We can venture off the edge of probable explanation, and suggest the possibility of even a cosmic "seeding" hypothesis--meteorites carrying organic molecules rained down on earth, created craters in volcanic areas. Rain and water collected in these craters and the organic molecules began interacting with one another in strange ways.

The first basis of such interaction would be a molecule that is able to utilize an external source of energy, probably for self-replication. We can find many examples of simple chemical systems in which molecules are spontaneously precipitated in concentration when certain threshold conditions are sufficient.

For such a system to work in a prebiotically sufficiently manner, we would have to assume a semi-closed kind of system in which energy could be input in regular and probably steady quantities, and within which a certain kind of complex equilibrium could be established between a complex molecular form and its substrate, with the molecular form being able to reproduce itself from the substrate in a regular manner, at a steady rate, and possibly, the components of the molecule eventually breaking down and being recycled into the substrate. New components might be periodically introduced into such an environment.

This early pre-biotic environment must have been somehow protected from a larger world in some way that allowed access to energy as well as to the basic building blocks of the molecules being produced. Not only did such molecules replicate themselves, but they obviously replicated themselves in growing numbers. We must imagine at some point the construction or presence of a barrier or even a "film" or membrane that isolated the machinery and processes of replication while simultaneously filtering both the components of replication as well as the energy that drove such replication. I think something as simple as a soap film, or a soap bubble, would be sufficient if it permitted transpiration of gases that might contain energy. Methane gas is a candidate for energy yielding molecules that might be easily transported across a membrane from a region of relatively high concentration to a region of low concentration. A by-product of methane gas combustion would be carbon dioxide, or alternatively water and oxygen.

We can argue for an early form of a carbon cycle that must have been there in the earliest system, sans the photosynthesis but with an alternate pathway of chemo-synthesis that may be catalyzed by thermo-synthesis, or alternatively, the reverse, thermo-synthesis catalyzed by chemo-synthetic compounds.

In fact, from a systems standpoint, we should argue for the presence of the basic chemical compounds, and elements, we find in all life forms today--namely nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. The cycles associated with these elements, found in living systems, and the basic reactions pathways associated with the organic molecules and compounds associated with these elements, should be more or less present in some form in the earliest pre-biotic systems. That water is a universal solvent, and that many solutions occur in water and many chemical compounds are soluble or partly soluble in water, seems like a basis for pre-biotic formations.

The complexity of analyzing possible pathways of compounds and energy relations, especially in terms of bonding of molecules, is too complex to be explored in this digression. We may in brief speculate that certain kinds of compounds may have been present in certain forms and variable concentrations--possibly methane gas, ammonia, water, carbon dioxide, and probably certain calcium compounds. These would have given rise to basic lipids, organic molecules, and nitrogen compounds that we associate with all living tissues and cells.

This kind of experiment in fact resembles in very primitive outline a simple prokaryotic cell, minus of course the genetic machinery. We must assume that the pre-biotic molecules were in a sense early genetic sequences of a sort, that were being replicated on a continuous basis. Enough variability must have been present in the early stages of this continuous self-replication that multiple forms or varieties of similar self-replicating molecules emerged.

At this stage, something else must have happened. The number of sub-processes involved in the cycles and chains of self-replication gradually became extended at a number of different points of articulation, and different replicating "species" of molecule began interacting with one another, and this interaction eventually must have influenced the context and process of events in self-replication.

It is at this point that I would say we would step from a "pre-biotic" form to a "proto-biotic" form of self-replication. Not only would the basic molecules themselves have to be self-replicated, but the entire system and even the entire environment become capable of regeneration. Life at this point quits merely responding to conditions in its environment, and begins control and creating, in a systems like manner, conditions of its environment. This is the stage at which we would expect the emergence of a full-blown prototypical cell that carried and reproduced not only the essential genetic molecule, but the environment and machinery for replication as well, including, perhaps most importantly, the cell wall.

I can imagine a prototypical, generic kind of cytoplasm as somewhat replicating the initial conditions of the primordial "soup" or broth n which life first formed. It would be kind of like a small tide-pool at the edge of a steam vent, constantly full of water, at the bottom of which would collect the right ingredients for such self-replication to occur spontaneous in an on-going way--eventually this aggregation would become "encapsulated" in a shell of sorts, not a hard shell but a semi-permeable membrane. And eventually, the molecules in this "large proto-cell" would come to wrap the membrane around themselves--at the point that they could reproduce not only their own structure in a consistent manner, but the machinery for maintaining and producing the membrane as well.

Ecological theories for the most part are functionalist models of adaptation, hence they tend to be synchronic constructs that do not in general explain or account for dynamic changes very well. Evolutionary theory is in general a diachronic model that accounts well for biological changes on several levels, but it does not account clearly for the processes underlying natural selection as a synchronic function of trait fitness and adaptation. It is clear that biological systems from their very beginning existed within a environmental framework that fostered their equilibrium, and this sense of ecology has accompanied evolutionary development ever after.

Ecosystems models can be applied to coevolutionary systems, but only in a transformed way. In general, we can relate the tendencies in the paradigm above towards increasing specialization and ecological elaboration of niches that are associated with increasing K-selection and size and relative complexity of living systems. From this, we can derive a model of evolutionary succession of biotic regimes in which the top eco-trophic runs of the pyramid of life are occupied successively by different dominate species, each successor being more K-selected than the precursor. These systems attain a level that can be characterized as an evolutionary climax. The top species are unlikely to be easily replaced by would-be invaders, though there may occur a prolonged period of sympatric speciation of the dominant species in such systems toward alternative trait configurations.

Outcomes of adaptation within any given biological system do not necessarily predict the outcomes for the evolution of the system as a whole. Since all living systems are by definition evolving, it follows that coadaptational models do not necessarily fit evolutionary frameworks in an unmodified form. Simplistically we can say that such systems undergo transformations that are tied to evolution succession and development of alternative trait-profiles.

The challenge of generalizing about multiple systems are that they are both determined in some ways and underdetermined in other ways. They are partial yet complete systems that are stratified upon multiple levels of natural information processing, from the molecular to the global, and everything living and breathing inbetween. Furthermore, the state-path trajectories of all living systems are complex and chaotic, forming a non-linear trajectory in which the final outcomes cannot be predicted by the initial inputs.

All life as we know it is earthbound. As far as we now know, biological systems are unique in that they known to occur only upon earth. They appear to share a common history with a single period of biogenesis. What makes biological systems especially unique is that their evolution has given rise to natural forms of intelligence that are capable of independent apprehension and construction of alternative systems that transcend the natural constraints governing life. These constitute human systems and they are also unique to earth--bound not just to the earth, but to the fragile biosphere that envelopes the earth's surface. We, as the species Homo sapiens sapiens, are both earthbound and life-bound to bio-ecological systems of the earth. It is something of a tragedy that the same forces of intelligence that allow human beings to construct their own worlds allow them to so thoroughly destroy their worlds as well. The destructive and violent aspects of the human species is historically undeniable and promises dire consequences for all of life on earth unless drastic remedial measures can be collectively undertaken.

The basis of a comprehensive biological systems theory rests with the successful theoretical integration of a general ecological approach with evolutionary theory upon a populational and species level of analysis. Ecology today exists as a set of important ideas and concepts, many of which have been extensively tested and demonstrated in the field, but without a central organizing theory. Evolution is of course the central comprehensive theory of biology, and the most comprehensive theory yet produced in the sciences.

The theoretical integration of ecological and evolutionary systems has yet to be accomplished, and must be seen as a hybrid offshoot of central evolutionary theory. What is lacking is a central organizational paradigm within which ecological theory can be comprehensively organized and articulated within the larger framework of evolutionary theory proper. The other side of the coin is that though evolutionary processes have been thoroughly studied, the basic processes and consequences of natural selection patterns have not been fully articulated with on-going processes of evolutionary speciation. A comprehensive theory of ecological evolution and evolutionary ecology should be both productive and simplifying of the plethora of concepts and perspectives that serve to mark out ecological and biological research. The theory that we are seeking is one that is unifying of ecology and evolution, and that is basically rooted in the systematic extension of evolutionary theory in the explanation of the ecological dynamics of complex living systems.

Two basic sets of concepts seem to me to be generally important to the understanding of the intersection of ecology and evolutionary theory. These are the principles of biological relativity and biological integration. The notion of biological relativity has rarely been addressed as such, but its elaboration has important implications in thinking about living systems in general. We may say that living systems are special in the universe, because they are both highly integrated, on one hand, out of necessity, and they are also simultaneously totally unique, on the other. No two biological systems are exactly alike, and systems emergent in one evolutionary epoch do not fit into frameworks of other epochs.

In their complexity of epigenetic patterning, no two biological systems, upon whatever level of analysis, are exactly alike. Most systems are biographical and historically unique, and this bespeaks a form of biological particularism that is a key characteristic of such systems. The biological relativity of all living systems entails that generalizations about such systems need always to be framed in the chaotic and complex context in which such systems occur, at the appropriate level and involving the right kinds of variables and parameters. It entails also that whatever generalizations we adopt, there are liable to occur many kinds of exceptions to the rule. Therefore generalization about biological systems is always incomplete and inductively open, derived from specific examples that are held to be prototypical of a certain case.

At the same time, as unique as all biological systems might be in their chaotic complexities of the unfolding of life, they are also simultaneously highly integrated as systems. As natural systems they are the most highly integrated and complex kinds of patterns that we know of, even dwarfing by comparison the rather crude and rudimentary systems of human technology. The integrity of natural biological systems is evident upon multiple levels of its design and functioning--systems cohere normally to perform rather sophisticated and specialized functions, given what means might be available to them.

Biological particularism demands that each species is unique unto itself, and each individual organism of each species is unique as well. It tells us that no two ecological or evolutionary regimes or epochs will be the same, and that once a biological system has gone down a certain pathway of evolution, it cannot simply backup and return to what the line once was. In this sense, we may say that evolution is irreversible as a total pattern of life concerning centrally its integration.

It is important to seek a more precise operational definition of relativity and its role in our theoretical understanding of living systems--all living systems demonstrate a unique integrity at all levels, and yet all living systems are interconnected to all other systems, however indirectly. If we are to specify a certain level or type of living system, then we must be careful to define the precise context in which that living system articulates with the larger systems of life. Life forms appear to present us with fairly clear and discrete boundaries of individual and unique populations, but when we understand biological systems as such, we must take care to designate in a precise way the framework in which such a system occurs in nature.

Biological relativity renders fundamentally problematic the challenge of comparing any two different biological systems for purposes of research and study. We must take care to see that such systems occupy similar levels and kinds of integration, otherwise we end up with a paradox of comparing apples and oranges, sometimes quite literally. We end up with a notion of partial similitude or analogy between any two or more systems on delimited scale of measurement. Frequent cases of convergent evolution are provocative in that underlying basic morphologies and histories might be quite different, and yet environmental streamlining of continuous selection of traits lead to similar kinds of bio-functional solutions in similar contexts. We can more precisely specify this degree of overlap if we consider all biological systems to be fundamentally polytypical sets, and even more importantly, polytypical paradigms, composed of arrays and complex sets of distinctive features more or less shared between different organisms or species. The degree of similarity of any two such systems is the degree to which their polytypical profiles can be said to overlap and resemble one another, regardless of their actual evolutionary distance.

We may combine the thereotical challenges of biological relativity and biological integration when we realize that all biological systems naturally seek to maintain a minimal degree of integration in relation to change over time. At the same time, all systems also tend toward maintaining a maximum of biological relativity at any one time. How biological systems accomplish these interrelated tendencies is the basis of the theory presented herein. In general it can be said that all biological systems oscillate between levels of minimal integration and maximal differentiation in both space and time, in the process they generally achieve a long term and large scale optimum stability of state-path trajectory.

All biological systems of a certain order and level of integration, share certain basic principles of organization and functional interaction that permit us a common ground by which to compare such systems within a basic framework. In this regard, we must seek in our biological systems theory coherent explanations for the following interrelated problem sets:

1. Biogenesis: how did the origin of life on earth occur, and what were the prerequisite conditions for such occurrence in the natural history of the earth.

2. Biophysics: what common physical properties and systems do all biological systems share in differential distributions that define them as unique but minimally common systems.

3. Biodynamics: how do biological systems change evolutionarily with the function of time.

4. Biocybernetics: how do biological systems transmit themselves through time in terms of their informational capacities.

5. Biosystematics: how do biological systems become integrated and increasingly diverse and complex over time.

6. Biospherics: how do biological systems integration constitute a single global system referred to as the biosphere that interacts and actively reshapes the geophysical environment and forms its own biotic contexts. As an extension, how can we create artificial biospheric systems by means of cultural selection, in a manner that will demonstrate many of the qualities and characteristics of the larger biosphere.

7. Biotics: How do different biological systems live together in complex interactions and create mutual biotic environments that influence evolutionary development.

8. Biosis: How do biological systems form stable modes and patterns of organic functioning and maintain these patterns indefinitely, while at the same time individual members of such systems live natural life cycles and suffer natural death.

9. Biochronics: How do biological systems develop temporal rhythms and periodicities that affect and influence their functioning, transformation and origination or extinction.

10. Biocosmics: how might biological systems evolve in extraterrestrial habitats.

These ten problem sets inform a general model of biological systems science in a coordinated manner. It is not only the answers to these questions that are important. It is perhaps more important to understand how each of the areas may and do interconnect with one another on the earth in various ways. From these kinds of interconnections we can see the emergence of a larger and more comprehensive theory of biological systems upon earth and beyond.

Elaborated together, these fundamental perspectives of biological systems constitute a kind of paradigm that coheres to constitute a form of natural systems theory. In such a framework, we can specify the following kinds of generalizations applicable to each of the main perspectives:

1. Life arose during a single period in a unique set of geophysical conditions affecting the earth.

2. The precursors of proto-biotic life forms led to the development of the DNA complex within a biotic cellular framework that is shared by all life forms today.

3. Once fully evolved, the first life-forms experienced a tremendous adaptive radiation and niche release as the result of the vast uninhabited expanses of the earth's pre-biotic state.

4. This early adaptive radiation set the stage for the subsequent pre-Cambrian explosion of life.

1. All biological systems are thermodynamic and therefore entropic and exhibit certain basic bio-functional machine patterns that were in place from the beginning and that slowly evolved into more elaborate mechanisms.

2. All biological systems have a beginning, a period of normal functioning, and an end.

3. All biological systems are defined by basic physical parameters that influence the dimensions and functions of the system. We may distinguish between:

4. All systems must be produced and exist within the functional parameters of basic biomechanical design constraints that determine the limits of change that such systems can undergo and still exist as minimally integrated systems.

5. Basic trade-offs occur in such systems that constrain their development along particular pathways.

1. All biological systems change endogenously in time, tending stochastically in certain directions of increased elaboration, complexity, size and number.

3. All biological systems are selectionally defined, the outcomes of which are generally stochastic

3. All biological systems are sensitive and responsive to their environments in selective ways.

4. All biological systems are environmentally informational in terms of their adaptive response patterns.

5. All biological systems depend upon the successful transmission of critical information on both genetic and environmental levels in order to survive and reproduce.

2. All biological systems are eco-trophically stratified within a niche continuum upon several different levels.

3. All biological systems are minimally integrated and therefore chaotically underdetermined.

1. All biological systems cohere into a single biospheric network that is global in scope and all encompassing of the earth's major realms and habitat foundations.

2. All biological systems are part of and constitue a bio-geophysical strata of the earth referred to as a biosphere.

3. This biosphere has hydrologic, geological and atmospheric components that tie together in complex ways to create the geophysical foundation for all life forms.

4. Life forms have been continuously shaping and reshaping this biosphere in critical ways.

5. Grand oscillatory cycles can be found in the regulation of the biosphere that has played a major role in the shaping and reshaping of life on earth.

1. Living systems coevolve in complex ways, and form interdependent networks that cross basic boundaries of Kingdoms and phyla.

2. The emergence of complex, elaborated biotic systems was based on abiotic precursors that maintained the fundamental differentials and interdependencies of such systems.

3. Relations between different kinds of organisms range in a continuum between cooperative to competitive.

4. Such relations tend toward nonlinear control systems that tend to result in periodic interharmonic oscillations of patterns of such systems.

1. All living systems develop a unique phenotypical pattern of state-behavior that is genetically predetermined and environmentally constrained and expressed.

2. Different kinds of biological systems adopt different ways of living that lead to different evolutionary consequences.

1. Biological systems all follow different periodicities at different levels of integration.

2. Multilevel periodicities affecting or involving living systems form complex butterfly patterns and rhythms.

3. All living systems are temporally constrained in vital and fundamentally important ways.

1. Life as we know it is strictly confined to the Earth's biosphere, from which it eventually evolved.

2. The likelihood is great that other biological systems have emerged in other planetary systems in the universe, though none have yet been discovered.

3. The discovery of alternative extra-terrestrial biological systems would fundamentally broaden the parallax of our biological systems theory and sense of biological relativity considerably, and would lead to greater understanding as to the nature and possibilities of such systems.

4. It is likely that so-called "non-intelligent" life exists in the vast depths of space, but it is likely that we will communicate with "intelligent" life forms first.

In attempting to address these aspects of the problem of biological systems theory, it should be restated that all biological systems, and by extension ecological systems, are essentially "blind" systems in that they follow a pattern of implicit informational functioning that is fundamentally random and driven by processes of stochastic determination and differentiation. The ascription of purposive or deliberate intentionality structures to living systems, often done inadvertently, is purely an artifact of human language in the description and explanation of such systems. Among larger brained creatures some amount of learned and purposive behavior can be attributed, but except for the case of Homo sapiens, even this can be defined within a larger life-world context that is essentially closed.

That we impose a sense of innate or predetermined "logic" to both bio-"logical" and eco-"logical" systems implies and imports as sense of self determination or deliberation about such systems that are in fact an artifact of our own human knowledge systems in conceptual construction and theoretical model building. I would say that they are a perhaps unfortunate implicit aspect of our language that we invoke to describe such systems, that imply a fallacy of self-determination and even purposive willpower in the processes of adaptation, selection and survival among biological life-forms that is in fact not there. In general it can be said that all biological life-forms survive and succeed as a function of the organisms innate design and functioning in a biotic-abiotic context. Living systems are complex, chaotic self-organizing systems, but they follow no predetermined sense of order or purpose.

The outcome of this anthropomorphization of living systems is the tendency in our models to impose a sense and level of order, integration and higher level purposiveness to such biological systems that does not really exist in nature in the way that we might be led to believe. Individual organisms do not concern themselves with the relative state of their species or populations. In general they do not think about the long term consequences of their actions or about the future. To some extent they may learn from experience on some concrete level at least. For the most part they respond to events in their environments in ways predicated by their biological makeup and genetic predisposition. They do not plan, prepare or ponder their next move or the necessary reactions of other organisms in their life-world. When we talk about populations we are referring to collections of organisms that are defined by ourselves as humans in their shared traits.

This consideration of biological systems is all the more amazing and sublime, I believe, when we consider the remarkable degrees of integration and adaptive elaborations that so many organisms have achieved in their evolutionary history. That all this should be mostly a product of chance and repeated elaboration and modification seems to defy all odds. When we recognize that most species eventually fail, but most genera also achieve evolutionary success through further speciation, then we realize that though the net odds may never favor any one individual very much, they tend in the statistical long run to favor the wider biological system as a whole much more favorably, even at the expense of most of its organisms.

Though we cannot attribute deliberative or purposive logic to biological systems (except perhaps our own, and a few other large brained mammals) we can attribute an almost fautless logic to implicit order and regularities of the functioning of biological systems upon multiple levels of integration and state-behavior. This logic is embedded implicitly in the relational patterns maintained by such systems and their components, and much of this is amenable to applied mathematical description.

We can say that systems adapt and evolve towards greater endogenous integration, but that they tend in the long run towards exogenous distintegration. Integration leads towards complex equilibrium of systems, creating both greater resiliency and susceptibility of such systems to stochastic and supercritical perturbation. The broader the base for integration, the higher the level of stratification achievable. A high level of integration can be measured in terms of relative biodiversity and bio-organization and distribution of pattern upon an epigenetic landscape. Such complex equilibrium can be thought of as a harmonic-resonance oscillating model that tends to be self-restoring under a certain broad range of multidimensional tolerance limits.

Life emerged only during one period on earth, and all subsequent evolutionary development has been an extension and elaboration of this single first period. The circumstances surrounding the origination of life on earth appear to have been highly unique and stochastically improbable. In the heuristic modeling of biogenesis, I have adopted an analytical framework describing prebiotic, protobiotic and neobiotic phases, assuming that these arose in succession, and generally during a single period of time and in more or less a single area. It is possible that there may have been multiple prebiotic phases, played out in different regions, some of which experiments of nature failed. Similarly, we can guestimate that protobiotic phases may have been multiple or periodic, most failing and a few succeeding, leading into a neobiotic phase. At each turn of the evolutionary screw, it is possible that many natural experiments failed, but one or more succeeded to carry on the next phase of biotic evolution. This same pattern has carried on throughout evolutionary history until today. In this we can refer to a general framework of proto-evolutionary development, which should in theory be defined as the gradual development of life-like systems leading up to the development of full DNA reproductive systems.

Prebiological systems must have had most or all of the basic abiotic building blocks available before the design reorganization resulting in life occurred. Prebiological systems were self-organizing systems that arose stochastically due to a unique combination of environmental and molecular conditions that led to the formation of increasingly complex organic molecules from basic molecular substrates, and to the organization of interaction between these compounds. The concept of self-organization of complex systems upon a molecular level is important in the consideration of biogenesis and biological systems in general, as such a concept, systematically applied, allows us to better understand the possible pathways that might have led relatively inert and abiotic substances to become reorganized to produce living organisms.

In considering the problem of biogenesis, it is important to partition the problem analytically to describe possible scenarios for the prebiotic foundations within which life could emerge. In understanding these prebiotic foundations, we must look at those essential aspects shared by all living systems that need to be accounted for in the set of originating conditions. Of these, the most important variables seem to be the presence of water, amino acids and DNA structures, cellular metabolisms involving primarily oxidation and respiration reactions, some bio-chemical energy platform, and the maintenance of a differential gradient of osmotic pressure internally and externally, driving the system.

Of these foundations, the most important consideration, and the key to all other aspects of the prebiotic system, seems to me to be the formation of vast quantities of water on the earth's surface, and the formation of a consistent and stable hydrologiccycle arising from this formation. Water could have been formed in phases of other liquids, in solid formations of the earth's surface or underground, or atmospherically in the combination of gases. In whatever scenario we adopt, we must assume the presence of energy driving systems for the various processes of water production that did develop. Probably, multiple pathways to the formation of water was followed.

It seems unlikely that all the water on earth could have precipitated out of an atmosphere, however dense, although the atmosphere could have lead to the first pooling and aggregation of water on earth, through the development of vapor and steam that eventually condensed and precipitated to the ground. If we look closely at the problem of the formation of water, we need to account for huge quantities of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen as a gas is ephemeral as it readily escapes the pull of earth's gravitation. It is assumed that most gaseous hydrogen would have leaked out to space and been lost from the earth, unless it could be reacted with or condensed into other forms.

It appears that before we can explain water, we must explain the formation of particular gases and compounds that would have allowed water-producing reactions to proceed in the first place. In this we must explain the fixing of both hydrogen and oxygen in very large quantities in combination with other gases and possibly with other solids in the early formation of conditions giving rise to water.

	H₂	O₂	Cl₂	N₂	F₂
H₂	----	-----	-----	------	-----
O₂		-----	-----	-----	-----
Cl₂			-----	-----	-----
N₂				-----	-----
F₂					-----
SiO₂

The challenge is not explaining the possible pathways taken by the first emergence of water, or the resulting growth of a hydrologic cycle that produced more cycles and may have involved multiple pathways. The real challenge is to determine the pathways that led to the precursors that made such pathways possible. The early atmosphere must have been an extremely noxious combination of gases that were primarily non-carbon based. Condensation of water as a result of steam and evaporation would have lead to increasing acidic-basic conditions in early water reservoirs. Thesereactions would go to water, ionic salts, and various kinds of sedimentary precipitates.

I believe it is important to account for the presence of so many silicates in the earth, and the tremendous abundance of silicates in the earth's crust. It is suggest that early reactions of silicate compounds, which may have formed early on, included the massive production of water as an outcome.

One possible pathway is the formation of ammonia gas which is high in hydrogen. An alternative is methane gas. Two forms of gases, ammonia and methane, could possible react with a variety of oxide gases, as for instance, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and sulfurous oxide, to precipitate water vapor. We can thus describe a kind of paradigm of possible pathways of reactions in the following kind of grid:

	O₂	CO₂	NO₂	SO₂
NH₃	2 NH₃ + 3O₂	2 NH₃ + 3CO₂	2 NH₃ + 3NO₂	2 NH₃ + 3SO₂
CH₄	CH₄ + 2O₂	------	CH₄ + 2NO₂	CH₄ + 2SO₂

Other possible pathways can be imagined, all leading to the production of water in certain finite amounts. Water, once produced, would have been a relatively stable compound with certain unusual properties that would have made it an end-state pathway. At the same time, the accumulation of water as liquid, or even as condensation, could have facilitated other types of pathways to further water production, as for instance certain strong-acid/strong-base reactions that proceed in aqueous solutions:

	NaOH	KOH	LiOH	Ca(OH)₂
HNO₂	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O
HClO₃	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O
H₂SO₄	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O
HCl	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O	H₂O

All of these strong acid-strong base reactions yield water in large quantities, plus a number of ions that are common and important to life-functions. There are a number of plausible strong-acid-weak base, weak acid-strong base and weak acid-weak base reactions that might have also proceeded, some yielding solid precipitates, water and gases that might have lead to the current atmospheric rations.

We should also not neglect the important role that iron and other trace metals may have played in early formations, in terms of oxidation-reduction reactions that might have lead to the formation of certain oxides and compounds that might have been important to a prebiotic brew.

I put forward a hypothetical model of a combination of strong acid-base redox reactions that led to the production of prodigious quantitites of water precipitated from a thick atmosphere. Once water formed and pooled on earth--in lakes, etc., this pooling of water had several effects. It served to cool off the earth's surface and to stablize conditions on the earth, and it served to induce further production of water by the augmentation of a hydrological cycle that increased gradually. In this context, biogenesis occurred--perhaps before there were oceans as full blown as we have today, but sometime after the first precipitation of water on earth.

Four sources of energy were probably available for the first pre-biological substrate to form--sunlight, vulcanism and geo-thermal energy from underground, electrical enegry from lightening storms, especially produced from thick dust conditions produced by volcanic eruptions, and meteorite storms. Any combination or all of these sources of energy may have contributed to the overall processes of the development of a prebiotic geophysical environment. Of these, sunlight is the most constant and steady form of energy, the most pervasive and continuous. Volcanism may have thrown tremendous clouds of particularized dust into the atmosphere to interact with the noxious gases already there. It may have released many of these noxious gases, as it has been found to do today, as well as providing some of the heat energy necessary to warm thermal pools. Electrical lightening storms in a clouded and dense poisonous atmosphere may have facilitated many of the basic reactions that occurred. Energies required for conversion reactions to take place would possibly be volcanic eruptions, electrical storms, and intense solar radiation. Of these, intense solar radiation seems to me to be the best candidate for providing the amounts and kinds of energies in a regular manner for inducing the chain of chemical events required for biogenesis.

In all these reactions, carbon is not directly implicated. Carbonates are in general weak bases. The main ingredients of the reactions above appear to be Nitrogen, Oxygen, water, and a variety of other elements, especially Chlorine, Calcium and Sodium. Once water formed, mild reactions proceeded with increasing precipitates. Under these conditions I believe, complex nitrogen-carbon molecules would form that would be the precursors of true living systems. Such molecules perhaps "fed" off of other molecules, metabolizing the energy from the chains of broken bonds under the right conditions.

The development of an early context for the emergence of life must explain the origins of so much water on earth in a context of an atmosphere primarily nitrogen and oxygen and carbon-dioxide in composition, in proportions of roughly 3-1. It is also evident that carbon and calcium are or have been at least ubiquitious in the biosphere, and must have been an important substrate of the entire process, as were certain basic salts and trace minerals.

It is apparent that evidence for this biological origination appears residually in the current geophysical cycles of the basic nutrients relevant to life--particularly in carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. A mixed nitrogen-carbon cycle must have occurred, in context with the production of water in very large amounts, that set the stage for biogenesis. The essential process seems to be the formation of a nitrogen-carbon based molecule that was capable of synthesizing energy from carboxylation and oxygenation.

Once the stage was set, complex sets of molecules emerged that formed systems that were the precursors to living forms. It is assumed that these systems formed in stable conditions of tide pools or other lotic systems where water conditions could be maintained in some kind of complex balance. Life forms could not have originated in open oceans or in fast running river systems where continous currents and intermixing would prevent the emergence of stable configurations of complex acqueous molecular solutions. We should not discount the possibility that such protobiotic forms emerged in relative "fresh" water conditions on land, in eddy-pools of stable streams or in lake or estuary conditions. Almost all biological systems today cannot tolerate large doses of salts in their systems, and have evolved sophisticated mechanisms for removing ions and maintaining a delicate balance within the cell.

Early protobiotic systems were possibly a form of abiotic decomposers that depended upon the metabolization of minerals and ions in solution. From these early a-biotic decomposer systems, early proto-biotic decomposition systems may have emerged, that essentially depended upon the first proto-biotic trophic level of a-biotic decomposition. Such forms had to be capable of producing the complex amino acid chains and basic carbon compounds necessary for the metabolization of a-biotic compounds and for the development of complex tissue systems.

In this, we can see a single pool of water, under the right conditions of sunlight, temperature, and composition of ions and compounds, as forming its own kind of proto-biotic boundary or partitioning system. Such pools of water would not need to be very large, should have been stable over a very long period of time, perhaps evaporation and run-off being replaced by precipitation. This suggests that life may have formed in small lakes rather than in tide-pools. How big or how small such a lake system could be to be optimal for protobiotic systems to stabilize and develop is an open question. I can imagine a system that fits the following kind of struture:

In such conditions, we can imagine water concentrating in stable systems in small

tidal pools or peripheral pools to a larger lotic system, possibly near a sea-coast that might have had the effect of inputing tidal water into the system. Seasonal fluctutations and/or tidal actions may have affected the ebb and flow of water into and out of the system, replacing any lost from evaporation and outflow to a larger sink by precipitation and run-off. The smaller peripheral pools in such a system may have formed semi-closed systems that were extremely stable and optimal for the emergence of protobiotic systems. In a sense, they would have constituted "gigantic cells" or very macro-cellular systems in which the boundary of the pool was the boundary of the proto-cellular system. In such a system, emergence of increasing complex organic compounds might have stimulated the subpartitioning of the entire system into smaller and smaller subsystems and units. Such protobiotic systems may have become exceeding complex in a long and enduring process of protoevolutionary development. Eventually, microscopic cellular sizes were achieved that were stable systems, laying prereproductive foundations for the self-organizing behavior of such systems im perpetuity.

These earlier precellular systems would eventually have been carried out from their original habitats to colonize other habitats. It is possible that such early systems devised a means or a mechanism for "carrying" their habitats with them, permitting them to recreate the essential conditions in new pools and places.

If we take a step back from the previous model, we can imagine this system as being a part of a larger lacustrian-estuarine system that would have allowed early proto-biotic colonization to proceed in a number of interconnected pools, allowing for exchange and prebiotic niche expansion of such systems.

Outflow from such lotic systems would allow the prebiotic systems to travel out and potentially colonize other neighboring pools, or to eventually spread in larger reaches of the oceans. Such periodic outflows would also have permitted a regular renewal of new populations of organic compounds and complex molecular interactions. In such a system, it is possible that these macro-cellular entities developed their own crustaceans or surface layers that served to stabilize conditions within the system and to mediate between external conditions, regulating environmental inputs into such systems. This may have been at first just a layer of surface scum or a more solid lattice structure that developed eventually into a kind of abiotic skin surrounding the entire habitat. Subsequent preevolutionary development of the pool would result in the possible partitioning of the system and its continuous subsegmentation into smaller and smaller subunits.

At the same time, it is possible that the entire system or parts of the system could be carried from one location to become introduced to another location. Such transplantation of systems would seem necessary to carry the entire system forward and for the renewal and development of new systems within the older frameworks. The role played by dispersals and transplantations of parts of such protobiotic systems or of entire systems cannot be underestimated in later evolutionary history.

It is evident from a protobiological model that many dynamic balances between basic level molecular interactions and larger environmental contexts were probably critical to the emergence of life long before life actually emerged on the DNA template that we know it to be now. It is possible for instance that in proto-biological systems, basic functions of respiration and even of photosynthesis may have been occurring before there occurred the organization of DNA systems. We cannot discount the notion of a prebiological ecology that was maintained by and within such systems that was critical to their continuation as self-organizing systems.

We must also look at the likelihood of pre-genetic structures of such systems that would have entailed the reconstruction and at least partial reproduction of such self-consistent and self-sustaining pregenetic structures through time. A pre-genetic design template may have consisted of partial segments of a larger chain, or even multiple units of the links of such a chain, that had yet to be assembled into a coherent entity. Processes of RNA transcription may have been occurring already with the segments of links of the larger chains yet to be assembled into a coherent organiismic entity.

In this model we must recognize the role of complex self-organizing systems as essentially chaotic and leading to patterned results that would have emerged through complex relationships and interactions. We can explain protobiotic and prebiotic formations as only possible stochastic systems that had the potential for self-organization and sub-partitioning of structures in time and place due to a functional a-biotic stability of such systems. It is possible that such self-organizing systems reached a point of critical complexity that a set off a chain-reaction of events that may have occurred in a relatively brief burst of activity and that would have eventuated in the full and complete emergence of fully biological life systems. This process of "punctuated equilibrium" may have happened more than once along different basic pathways, leading to multiple forms of life at the same time.

As precursors, neo-biotic had to have basic structural functions of all living forms--genetic information and processes of growth and reproduction that allowed the same design to be extended indefinitely through time against a complex energy gradient, and to adapt and become altered over time to an increasing array of environmental niches and zones. From a long period of preevolutionary development, there must have occurred a rather rapid rise of differentiation and niche release to a wide range of basic environmental habitats. Increasing biogenic elaboration in different environmental circumstances resulted in a rapid proliferation of species. There must have occurred several such early explosions of life--the most evident is the Cambrian explosion during which period of time all the major Kingdoms and phyla presently extant were represented.

The earliest biological systems to have fully genetic structures of transmission must have had a cellular morphology and metabolic structure already formed. The biological cell is its own microscopic biological system and the precursor of all subsequent multi-cellular biological life forms. The prokaryotic form is regarded as the most primitive biological structure.

Cellular organization and subsequent differentiation on a microscopic level, and then reorganization into larger multi-cellular systems, was an important first step in neoevolution. DNA structures are almost exclusively found within a natural habitat of the cell, and all living organisms are essentially cellular in structure. It is important to recognize cellular systems as constituting their own stable internal habitat and set of internal environmental conditions allowing for the maintenance, production and reproduction of its DNA content.

In a sense, all subsequent evolution proceeds fundamentally upon a cellular level, and this microscopic level of cellular-evolutionary differentiation allows for an almost continuous patterns of trait modification and a wide range of basic trait plasticity that results from the reorganization and reconfiguration of cellular structures.

The emergence of cellular structure therefore marked the true beginning of living forms on earth. In this process, it is possible that segmentation of prebiotic systems reached a point of microscopic cellular scale, at which size true cells emerged and, in exponential time, evolved into multi-cellular systems that were increasingly organized and differentiated and that progressively exhibited synergetic properties at the super-cellular level.

We can thus see a pre-biotic process of increasing segmentation of gross and unintegrated systems from a macroscopic size into increasingly smaller and smaller size subsystems, until at the point of an average cell size, such systems became reorganized in fundamental ways into neobiological systems, after which they continued to increase and differentiate in a continuous manner into larger multicellular organic and oraniismic structures.

In the emergence of neobiological systems, we must speculate on the gradual rise of shared trait function and the trophic differentiation/specialization of such functions on basic levels. As biological subsystems emerged, such trait function stratification tended to separate groups of organiismic structures and systems from one another, and also to partition such systems internally within organiismic frameworks. Such systems were also fundamentally growing in both size and complexity of organization.

In the model presented above, we can picture the original emergence of a prokaryotic life form as the most basic form of life to evolve. Its principle function was that of decomposition of the basic mineral and chemical molecules that were a part of its environment. These forms eventually differentiated into more specialized varieties of protists, on one hand, and fungal forms on the other, life forms that were precursors and antecedents of even more complex differentiations of plant and animal forms to emerge at a later sequence.

Accompanying this emergence of the basic Kingdoms of life were the specialization of basic functions in a growing system of feedback, between production on one hand, and consumption on the other, both of which were intermediated on an underlying level by means of decomposition processes. It is apparent that the basic photosynthetic processes that are at the heart of the organic production processes were there at the time of the emergence of fungal life forms, and that fermentation reactions became supplanted or supplemented by basic carboxylization and oxygenation reactions. Respiration seems to have been a basic metabolic function of cellular growth and maintenance that was existent pretty much from the beginning, and the rise of consumers seems to be a natural consequence of the rise of producers in conditions that some forms of life came to depend directly on other forms of life, instead of decomposing and feeding directly upon the environment.

It follows that production derived from basic processes of organic decomposition and consumption processes derived from basic processes of inorganic decomposition at an early period. It suggest that the earliest life forms must have functionally differentiated into organic and inorganic decomposers--those that directly processed inorganic minerals from the environment, and those that followed by processing the tissues and substances produced by these original inorganic processors.

I have chosen to adopt a basic bio-mechanical model to the challenge of integration of ecological and evolutionary theory. In general, all living systems, at whatever level of patterning organization, represent semi-closed mechanical systems that, like all mechanical systems, obey the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. They involve energy exchange upon multiple levels, and they are ultimately entropic in the sense that they are inefficient and that, in time, as imperfect machines, they will eventually disintegrate as systems. In other words, all living systems, whether they are organisms, populations, species, ecosystems or entire epochal regimes, must eventually come to an end. Mortality is the basis for understanding natural selection on one hand, the driving force behind evolution, and natural ecology and adaptation, on the other hand. If an organism cannot successfully adapt to changing environmental conditions, then that individual will perish.

In general, I will state that rates of genetic mutation remain more or less the same for all living systems, unless specific mechanisms are evolved that may interfere with some of the energetic pathways that can result in genetic mutuation. Related to this notion is that all cells are of a fairly standard and uniform size range, and the periodicities involved in their rates of division and reproduction are more or less the same for all living systems. This entails that, though rates of genetic mutation may be similar across the board of all living organisms, those multi-cellular organisms that are larger in size will on average grow and reproduce at a relatively slower net rate than smaller or single celled organisms. Hence, rates of mutation and genetic variation will be felt more rapidly with smaller sized organisms than with larger organisms in general, and this difference follows a linear regression trendline in nature. Rates of evolutionary differentiation of species are tied to several factors, some of which are related to exogenous changes in the surroundings and interactions of organisms. But there occurs a fundamental variable in such rates of evolutionary differentiation that is a function of the average size of an organism per the average natural longevity of such an organism if no other selective factors are involved.

This can be expressed as a fairly uniform ratio of average size/average longevity of an organism, a general rule for which there are only a few exceptions in nature. It follows that large, K-selected type species evolve more slowly over time than small r-selected species, and also that more generalist adapted species will evolve more rapidly than more specialized species. The first case is an obvious outcome of the principle of size in relation to genetic rates of variation and modification. The second case is the outcome of a generalized species being more adapted to a wider range of ecological variations, such that any genetic variations that do arise in such species are more likely to become expressed and selected for. I would express these kinds of relationships in the following kind of paradigm:

The principle followed by all biological systems upon whatever level seems to be that of the fundamental biological imperative to survive and reproduce. I will call this the biological imperative. Its first order is biological survival, and its second order is successful reproduction as a system.

The basic laws of bio-mechanics determines that all systems much change, and each time a system goes through reproduction, the result is in some minimal manner at least fundamentally different than the parent system. This follows as well from the basic laws of thermodynamics that predicts that there can be no perpetual motion machines.

It appears as if life is naturally attempting to accomplish the impossible--it has an anti-entropic function of maintaining itself as somehow a minimally integrated system that continues into the future indefinitely, in the process changing itself and growing and elaborating all the possible permutations of its fundamental design potential. We see this because, inspite of much extinction, the thread of life continues today unbroken with a natural history of about 3.5 billion years. If we hold strictly to our fundamental laws, we know that life, as a living system that is minimally integrated, will eventually come to an end on earth--all living systems must die eventually. The real question is how old it will become before its final demise. This question is especially important in light of the fact that we seem to be hastening its final demise as much as possible. But humankind also holds the power of perpetuating and extending life, even beyond the boundaries of the earth, in a manner that might assure it of its continuing survival into the indefinite future.

1. Evolutionary systems are defined by basic geophysical parameters from which they arise and by which they are always fundamentally constrained.

2. Evolutionary systems tend towards increasing growth, differentiation and complexity as a natural function of their stochastic underdetermination in following the biological imperative to survive and reproduce.

3. Patterns of differentiation and complexity tend to be historically irreversible, such that one species that divides into two, cannot become one again.

4. Patterns of growth, differentiation and complication result in cyclical patterns of periodic alteration and replacement once basic limits of growth of the overall system are overpassed.

Bioevolutionary mechanics defines for me the basic structural aspects of living systems, defined as energy, information and heat exchange systems of a special genetic design that results in reproduction and modification of the entire system. Biomechanics concerns organismic energy pathways, size, biomass, as well as the same parameters for larger sets of populations and ecosystemic communities. We may identify a basic principle of ecological and evolutionary entropy of all biological systems that implies that they will never achieve perfect equilibrium of adaptation to fluctuating exogenous changes or circumstances. Such entropy creates "noise" in biological systems leading to dysfunctional relationships, disequilibrium and the overall instability of such systems.

Models of biological systems cannot be further comprehended outside of the context of a global biological or biospheric context, as this larger framework sets certain basic conditions and constraints upon all subsystems in critical ways:

1. The total biosphere at any given point in time is represented by a number of ecosystems composed of one or more biotic communities.

2. All biotic communities occupy one or more eco-systems and are evolving as biological systems, and such communities cohere into evolutionary eco-systems with distinct but relative and transitional boundaries.

3. All evolutionary communities are evolving at different rates along different adaptational pathways.

4. All biotic communities undergo evolutionary succession in several stages resulting eventually in the establishment of complex equilibria of stable climax evolutionary regimes.

5. In terms of basic biological and physical constraints, all biotic communities are at least partially open communities. There can be no completely closed eco-system upon any level.

6. Being partly open and always evolving, all biotic communities are at least indirectly connected to one another, and all are therefore coevolutionarily integrated upon some minimal level.

7. Coevolutionary relationships can lead to adaptational and counteradaptational selection patterns between members of different biological systems that is a function of relative evolutionary entropy and equilibrium.

8. Coevolutionary relationships tend in the long run to result in anti-climactic destabilization of climax communities and in evolutionary collpase and mass extinction of certain communities, especially at the apex of the established trophic pyramid.

9. Evolutionary collapse is rarely complete, and may follow a cyclical pattern of endogenous/exogenous change mechanism.

10. Evolutionary collapse results in room being opend up with the "evolutionary pyramid" for replacement of many forms of life from peripheral biotic communities, leading to a new round of evolutionary development.

To encapsulate this general model which is held to govern eco-evolutionary patterning of biological systems at all levels, the requirement of biological systems to adapt and survive, especially in relation with other biological systems, leads invariably to biological systems growing in size and complexity to the point that they eventually collapse due to supercritical complexity of their own self-organization in a larger context defined by random exogenous and endogenous variables. Biological systems, poised in equilibrium at some climax state, will sooner or later collapse due to factors beyond their adaptational control.

It appears that biodiversity may exist in an inverse relationship with biomass of systems. In other words, high biodiversity would require that individual organisms grow to an optimum size, but no larger. Areas where biodiversity is relatively low often support species with an unusually large biomass, both in terms of size of the organisms and size of the population. Oceans provide an example where, in tropical zones about coral reefs, there might be a tremendous biodiversity of many kinds of species, but it is in the open, often barren oceans that the very largest creatures can be found in greater numbers.

If generational time is shorter in tropical systems than in temperate systems, then it is the case that the rates of mutation and speciation are also faster in such contexts, and it average size of creatures filling a niche would on average be less. In a tropical zone, the picture is of a large number of relatively specialized niches across a highly variegated terrain. In a temperate zone, the picture is of a fewer number of species in large niche areas, spreading out more across a landscape that is inherently less variegated.

In this comparison, Dinosaurs deserve consideration and explanation--they have unusually large sizes and tremendous biomass. Surely the feeders were browser's and grazer's capable somehow of processing into protein the vegetable/cellulose fiber it consume. The question is how could such great creatures have developed in extremely hot and humid tropical conditions--when a Savanna-like environment would seem more appropriate for their biomass.

There is also a sense that biotic systems can grow old, and in the process of growing old and in establishing entangled webs within webs of delicate equilibrium, they become slower and gradually climb the eco-trophic pyramid to larger and larger sizes. The old world rain forests seem to harbor a fundamentally different fauna than the new world, and these old world forests are more diverse.

There is a sense that tropical systems are high energy systems, cycling nutrients and organisms at much higher rates than in more temperate zones. In such a condition, creatures would not grow too large. In temperate zones that are characterized by lower overall energy levels and slower dynamics, creatures may grow nevertheless to an unsually large size. In these latter contexts there appears to be more efficient processing of basic food resources in bulk. It is like the baleen whales that feed on tiny plankton or large woolly mammoths grazing on tundra and prairie grasses.

There is a sense as well that biological systems can evolutionarily and ecologically reach a cul-de-sac or a cliff in terms of their direction of further development. This deadend is as much a function of size to reproductive period, as it is to the strain of such large systems upon a biological niche. Once large and hyperdeveloped species have developed in specialized ways especially, it is much more difficult for these species simply to backup upon the evolutionary pathway and to return to some lower level of fitness-adaptation. Such species become prepositioned for eventual extinction when they cannot evolve fast enough away from a set of changing environmental conditions.

Another way of putting this is that systems tend towards increasing size selection or increasing diversity in the long run. There is an inverse linear relationship between absolute rate of reproduction and generation time and body size. Increased body size confers certain adaptive advantages, especially in density-dependent relationships, and is evident in the fossil record as phyletic size increase, but it puts such species out on an evolutionary limb, or, rather upon an evolutionary plateau from which they cannot easily escape. Small species may more easily and readily evolve into large species, than large species can evolve back into small species.

And as it goes with species, it goes in a similar way with all other levels and kinds of biological systems. The more biomass and fundamental physical input into a larger system, the greater the problem that system has in changing itself in a finite way into some other kind of system.

The basic framework of biodynamics in biological systems theory is a kind of modified taxon cycle that all biological systems purportedly undergo in the course of time. This modified taxon cycle is a tendency, as previously noted, for all systems to change in certain general directions towards either increasing size and biomass or towards increasing biodiversity. The kind of cyle I am referring to I call the r-K taxon cycle, which refers as much to phases of a populations growth and size as it does to a species or specific organisms relative selective and adaptive trait profile. In an r-K taxon cycle, organisms progress through various alternative stages during which different kinds of selection regimes become critical in determining the outcomes. They progress in general from an r-r through an r-K to a K-r and final to a K-K model of selection-adaptation, and these stages are presented by certain characteristic trait configurations of size, generalized or specialized functional morphologies, key traits, reproductive patterns and longevity. As biological systems progress up the pyramid from an r-type selection-adaptation pattern toward an increasing K-type pattern, they become less susceptible to the problems of local environmental fluctuations and density independent factors, and more susceptible to factors of increasing competition and density dependence in complex or climax biotic regimes.

Within this framework, it can be seen that different groups and biological systems at different levels of this r-K continuum undergo different periodicities and cycles during which different kinds of selectional and adaptational regimes are predominant. Species move along the continuum through various forms of key-trait developments that place the species into new level of adaptation-selection regime. In general, when that happens, the species grows larger and larger. This kind of taxon cycle is true for the evolution of lines at all levels of the taxonomic tree, and constitutes the basis for the classification of different taxa based upon their history of trait development and functional adaptations.

As previously reiterated, the general stochastic tendency for all evolving species is to move from r towards increasing K modes of adaptation-selection. The problem is that as species move generally in this direction, there occurs increasing levels of competition associated with increasing K, through greater density-dependency. This is offset to some degree by a larger adaptational trait-profile of the species, but this larger profile also predisposes the member organisms to a greater range of potential risks and trade-offs.

As reiterated previously, it is also easier for a r-type species to move in a K direction, than it is for a strongly K type species to return to a more r-mode of adaptation-selection. The result in general is that K-type species will more readily step of the ladder of evolution into the abyss of extinction, to be replaced from below by more r-selected types of species. To look at this another way, it is possible to imagine a small single cell organism to eventually evolve into a large behemoth, but it is impossible to imagine a large behemoth evolving back into a single cell organism.

The way to understand adaptation and fitness of organisms and species is to understand such adaptations in terms of critical or key trait configurations that are exhibited in the profiles of these organisms. Trait configurations are complex solutions to the problem of biological survival, arrived at after millennium of exploration and blind genetic experimentation. Once arrived at, such trait configurations may prove highly robust and adaptive to a broader range of tolerance limits than those conditions that gave rise to them in the first place. Once so adapted, it is probably more difficult for a species simply to back out of an evolutionary corner.

The challenge of understanding the relationships between evolutionary and ecological theory is that these relationships are largely conceptual, and though both ecological adaptation and natural selection are proceeding simultaneously, the long term effects of these patterns are much more difficult to ascertain on the ground. A conceptual problem of largely hypothetical models of ecology and evolution entails that we have a plethora of interesting concepts, but no clear idea of how they all interrelate and integrate to achieve a systematic picture of the interaction of environment with evolution of species. There is also a critical sense that both evolution and ecology, locked in a kind of biological dialectic, are in a sense chasing one another's tale. Ecological adaptation leads to evolution which leads back to ecological adaptation. It is equally apparent that ecological adaptation and evolution are always incomplete and fundamentally open processes, the outcomes of which are never certain.

The fossil record teaches us that there have been far more evolutionary failures than successes in the long run, and even so, all extant life forms have been in a sense built upon a complex history of both success and failure. Because all extant life forms exhibit continuity with the remotes origins of life, in an uninterrupted if somewhat non-linear manner, they can all be considered successful even if their future is not bright or clear. One thing that is clear is that there is continuous biological replacement of forms, and biological replacement is a form of ecological release that follows a period or episode of restriction and extinction. To succeed, almost all organisms need to be capable of automatically exploiting a condition leading to replacement and release. In favorable conditions of empty niches and unrestricted resources, it is natural that biological reproduction will proceed exponentially in a Malthusian manner, and species will diffuse into and through a habitable, exploitable zone, until they can concentrate and create new patterns of equilibrium. This pattern of all life forms can be referred to as part of the biological imperative that life follows, must follow, if it is to remain successful on earth.

We may say in general that evolutionary theory articulates with ecology through the principles of adaptation, especially as this affects natural selection. The trouble is that adaptation is a relative and general concept that is difficult to apply. Adaptation of an organism may shift almost daily or from season to season. We must specify the level and framework of adaptation, and we must acknowledge that ultimately all adaptation is blind response to changes that have already occurred. In such a way species or organisms cannot adapt to future changes or events before they happen. As a general form of response patterning to exogenous changes, adaptation is largely a stochastic process the outcomes of which cannot be predicted. It is probably the case that most organisms come into the world genetically preadapted to a general complex range of factors that hedge their bets for survival in their favor. It is also the case that even the best adapted and "fittest" organism can succumb unexpectedly to relatively change agents in the environment.

It is difficult therefore to fit a general model of adaptation to the problem of survival and natural selection, or to rest an entire comprehensive theory upon such a nebulous concept. On the other hand, Darwin based evolutionary theory upon the principle of natural selection, a concept which until today remains poorly defined.

We can say that life in general has had a long period of evolutionary history to work out and solve the problems of adaptation. Every new organism, every new generation, every new species, represents one alternative solution to the general problem of adaptation of life on earth. A great deal of experience and information can be said to be contained in the genetic profiles of different organisms, and no one profile can be said to be a necessarily better or more adaptive solution than another.

For each new individual organism brought into a world, we can attach a specific, even unique adaptive profile, and we can assign a certain probability of outcomes based on this profile alone. Even so, as previously mentioned, a well adapted organism still might make poor choices, or suffer misfortune that was not a part of the original calculus. The biggest and best seed of a flower can fall into a poor shaded place between rocks, never to see the light of day. Relatively poor seeds can nevertheless find the most optimum conditions for their growth and prosper to their own limits.

In essence, from the beginning, living systems have tended to create there own ecosystems, and these ecosystems have evolved in due course along with the evolution of the species contained within them. The evolution of a unique species is not just about the development of a suite of traits within some specific eco-trophic niche profile, but the development of entire suites of adaptive systems that are intrinsically articulated within eco-trophic niches. We cannot treat the evolution of a species as something relatively or entirely independent, as in isolation, of the adaptive environmental forces that have always affected it and determined its success or failure in terms we refer to as natural selection. In this process, we must understand at least two levels of influence that occur, each of which is in itself extremely complex:

1. Adaptation to the bio-geophysical conditions of the natural physical environment, including the physical environment created by other living organisms, in a relatively density independent manner.

2. Adaptation to the bio-behavioral conditions created by the relative presence and influence of other organisms, either directly upon the organism (ie. predation, commensalism, etc.) or indirectly through influence upon the adaptive environment of the organism. In general type 2 adaptations can be thought of as being density dependent in nature, if we understand the concept of density to embrace a wider heterogeneous definition of biodiversity to include a broad range of different kinds of organisms.

Adaptations can be either positive, negative or neutral in their net outcomes, though they may be quite variable in their immediate effects. Adaptation is fundamentally blind and hence stochastic. In other words, all adaptive systems are necessarily underdetermined systems. We may say in general that short-term exogenous (ecological) changes result in long term endogenous (evolutionary) changes while short-term endogenous (evolutionary) changes may result in long-term exogenous (changes).

We must understand that the problem of adaptation proceeds ecologically and evolutionarily upon several levels at the same time--it proceeds at the level of the individual organism, at the level of the specific population, at the level of the interspecific ecosystemic context and at a level of an entire species or broader superecosystemic context that encompasses a range of different species that may not be in direct contact.

Adaptation has a direct relationship to the concept of niche--an adaptive profile constitutes the niche occupied at the several possible levels mentioned above.

It is highly unlikely that any suite of adaptive traits is adaptively neutral or has no net conseqences on the likelihood of success or failure at any level. There must be in such a complex and underdetermined system a great deal of uncertainty of outcomes, rendering such systems largely blind and stochastic. Success or failure can only be known in the long run, and cannot be clearly determined in the short run.

In time, living systems influence their environments in basic ways, creating conditions that are suitable for survival and genetic stability. They tend towards establishment of a basic equilibrium of adaptation along key limiting factors within sets of environmental factors and surroundings that demonstrate certain consistencies of pattern in important ways.

Living systems have become stratified upon multiple levels and across a broad range of biogeophysical areas. This pattern of stratification has varied from one biological epoch to the next, being frequently punctuated by periods of mass extinction that witnessed the creation of an general ecological vacuum under a new set of emergent conditions that provided the groundwork for an entirely new pattern to arise.

Integration and stratification are complementary concepts in all natural systems, but especially in biological systems where such complementarity is played out to the nth degree in almost every fact of such systems at every level. What is remarkable about living systems is there shear complexity of multi-level interfunctioning that normally occurs with such systems. We cannot separate functions on a microscopic level with reproduction and basic production processes, from large scale functions on a global biospheric level that may literally encompass the entire earth.

We can specify a fundamental size hierarchy of natural stratification of biological systems, which hierarchy of stratification is quite useful when it comes to the systematic comparison of different systems upon different levels. Systems are stratified on the basis of relative size and scale.

2. Metascopic systems & microscopic subsystems--organismic systems & cellular subsystems

3. Macroscopic systems & macroscopic subsystems--superoganic systems & organismic subsystems.

In general, these incorporate three levels of living systems that can be roughly called the suborganic, the organic and the superorganic levels of integration. Furthermore, we must also take into account in a systematic way the inorganic substrate and superstrate of organic systems. In this regard we view normally biological systems as existing in an intermediate level between an inorganic substrate and a inorganic superstrate. Variability of substrate/superstrate is the source of much variability of pattern in living systems. Within the substrate and superstrate structure, there are natural divisions of classification that are very basic to the comparative identification of different living systems. One of the most basic divisions is between water-based and land-based systems, for instance.

Implied in this hierarchy of size and scale are several other considerations. First and foremost, higher order systems subsume and incorporate lower order subsystems, and hence represent more complex patterns for living systems. Lower order subsystems are more basic and were evolutionary precursors to the development of higher order systems.

Within each of the basic levels of systems, we can designate three sets of sublevels, small, medium and large, for a total system of nine sets of sublevels. Lower order systems arise independently in evolutionary terms, and become incorporated into higher order systems as a result of evolutionary development. We can see this process clearly in the rise of genetic trait anomalies that confer adaptive superiority to an individual leading to reproductive success-the result is the incorporation of the trait into a new population, and, in time, a new species.

Adaptation refers to fitness profiles of an organism, and by extension, of a population, to a complex range of environmental factors that affect its chances for survival and reproductive success. These fitness or adaptive profiles are also defined environmentally in terms of the eco-trophic niche or multidimensional space occupied existentially and functionally by the organism. Fitness tends to be niche specific, and it is like fitting a round peg to a round hole of the right dimensions. Of course fitness-niche relations are complex and multi-factorial. There may be critical factors that affect the profile, but the profile represents a suite of interacting traits and adjustments that represent a complex genetic equilibrium that has been established by the organism in relation to its environment.

Within each of the basic levels of systems, we can designate three sets of sublevels, small, medium and large, for a total system of 9 sets of sublevels--lower order systems arise independently in evolutionary terms, and become incorporated into higher order systems as a result of evolutionary development. We can see this process clearly in the rise of genetic trait anomalies that confer adaptive superiority to an individual leading to reproductive success-the result is the incorporation of the trait into a new population, and, in time, a new species. Exceptions to this rule can and do occur, but the likelihood is not great. In general, we can say some of the following:

1. Similar species or related conspecifics that occupy different ecotrophic niche profiles tend in the long run to diverge.

2. Different species that occupy similar ecotrophic niche profiles tend in the long run to converge.

3. As ecological equilibrium develops coevolutionarily in a system it can be expected that trait complexes will exhibit in general a form of functional-formal streamlining that leads to the best or most optimum solution to a general eco-trophic niche.

4. Convergence of different kinds of species along similar trait-complex or configurations can be an expected outcome of this kind of evolutionary streamlining. Divergence of similar kinds of species is an expected outcome of niche-divesification related to dispersion, differential selection and natural trait variation

Species that are well adapted to a particular eco-trophic profile or range, tend to become in time evolutionarily streamlined in terms of the functional morphology. This streamlining is a multi-trait profile, or complex of traits affecting the total adaptability of a population to a specific ranges of environments. Streamlining emerges slowly and only within broad parameters defined by the genetic adaptive profile within the eco-trophic niche. Streamlining can only proceed down certain evolutionary pathways.

We can understand that life on earth has always had a minimal degree of integration. We can perhaps understand this sense of complex integration best if we consider that life is a natural form of intelligence, expressed through genetic transmission and mutation, that leads to trait-modification in the face of selective pressures of the environment. In a sense, life is like a form of genetic algorythm, that is exploring stochastically a broad search-solution space many different combinations, seeing each time round what works and doesn't work. But unlike most genetic algorythms, the outcomes of any possible combination in real life organisms are influenced dramatically by the organisms that are directly and indirectly connected to the organism, and this occurs on a dynamic and epigenetic landscape that is in continuous flux and has little long-term stability of pattern. There is critical feedback in such systems from other organisms, responses to responses, that reverberate throughout the structure of such a field of relations. The net result over the many millennia has been a very broad plethora of different life-forms and different evolutionary regimes on earth, and the emergence of many different, highly elaborated trait configurations. In other words, there have been many different interesting solutions to the basic problems and challenges to Life--these solutions all represent viable alternative design templates in response to life's basic biological imperative. In other words they represent forms of implicit, achieved natural intelligence, achieved by design, that solves certain basic and derivative problem sets in life.

Evolutionary streamlining and convergent evolution are clear examples of the natural self-organizing intelligence of living systems that are capable of "solving" complex natural patterns through continuous trait complex modification. This form of intelligence is essentially blind and stochastic, unlike what we normally think of as intelligence, but the ability to solve complex problems by simplifying the "information bottleneck" implicit to such problems is a basic definition of intelligent systems of any kind.

The development of the Animalian brain was not merely a fortuitous outcome of playing evolutionary blind-man's bluff. As a possibility, its eventual emergence as a critical organ in the problem of the integration of life was perhaps inevitable, at least eventually. The basis of natural brain function is the sensory recognition and processing of critical environmental information, particularly to light, smells, sounds, touch, and taste, that allowed an organism to coordinate its complex biobehavioral response patterning. The second foundation of natural brain function is the motor coordination of behavioral and organiismic response of an organism--a brain brings the diverse functions of all different subsystems of an organism "under one roof" so to speak, and is necessary for the coordination of all these functions in a manner achieving the basic biological imperative.

That the animalian brain would also emerge in time in larger and more complexly organized structures must also be seen as a natural biological consequence of continuous trait selection. In almost every instance, everything else being equal, a larger brain structure would have almost by definition conferred an adaptive advantage over one that is less well developed, as it would have permitted the organism a more sophisticated and unpredictable pattern of response.

The challenge of biocybernetics is therefore not as much a matter of defining intelligent informational patterning in all living systems, as it is the challenge of explaining the rise and patterning of natural intelligence in such systems, that permitted greater levels of integration, coordination and stratification between systems and subsystems to be achieved than otherwise.

This challenge extends to the issues of complex communication systems that arise biologically and that are expressed in social organization and interaction of living systems. We may find communication systems inherent to the behavioral and social organization of most species of the kingdom Animalia. Communication of species of kingdom Plantae or the other Kingdoms would be more difficult to establish except in a rudimentary form, for example, of the coloration and smells of angiosperm flowers that attract pollinators. Communication establishes patterns at a phenotypical level of social organization that is not directly mediated by genetic trait configuration, although it may be said that most such systems are strictly regulated and constrained by instincts.

The natural biological brain, whether it takes a primitive form of an earthworm, or the complex form of a primate brain, permitted a level of adaptive response and flexibility of such systems that would not have otherwise been achieved, and it allowed for the organism to exist in a world that, though perhaps enclosed, was not perhaps totally dark.

It is evident that a dog brain is close enough in basic structures to the human brain as to permit a fundamental level of communication and cooperation to occur between dogs and humans that would otherwise be impossible. All the rudimentary structures that underlie human brains are in place in the dogs, from simple mechanical conditioning to dreams, basic emotional responses,simple problem solving, long-term memory functions, to even a form of pre-symbolic thinking. Without these structures being in place and shared by both dog and human, there would be no basis for interspecific communication and cooperative relation between the two species.

Biosis concerns the evolutionary patterning of living systems through time and across space in a coordinated manner, and it concerns the question of the stadial developmental cycles that living systems proceed through from their beginning until their eventual demise. In general, it concerns the life-history patterns of individual organisms, populations and species, involving reproduction, growth, and eventual demise.

It can be said that most species that emerge from population dynamics are evolutionary failures. They represent unique natural experiments of life in complex genetic adaptations of populations to dynamic environmental contexts.

In call cases, it can be said that the individual organism, of whatever type, represents a basic biological experiment. It is a unique combination of genetic traits within a unique evolutionary and ecosystem context, exactly unlike any other related organism. Organisms come and go, and must invitably die. Their success is to be defined by the succession of generations forthcoming from that organism.

In general, the concept of biotics is complementary to the idea of biosis--biotics automatically engages the complex patterns of interaction between organisms, species and larger systems, and concerns the rise of complex biological systems formation in a systematic manner.

No individual biological system can be considered in ecological or evolutionary vacuum, in isolation from other biotic forms that cooccur and coevolve in relation to that system. An eco-evolutionary regime is defined as a global-regional system that is dominated by a basic eco-trophic profile constituted by particular orders or phyla to the exclusion of other possible orders or phyla.

This forms the basic global ecological system of life on earth that remains with us until today. Individual species and phyla have come and gone in great numbers, but the basic functional categories and Kingdoms remain as true today as they were when they first developed sometime before the Cambrian explosion.

This structure is to be seen not just as a static pyramid of relations, but as a dynamic interaction between levels in a complex system of cause, effect and subsequent cycles of response.

Changes in the bio-geophysical substrate result in major reverberatory changes and shifts in the entire global ecological substrate, resulting in a the fall and rise of a new eco-evolutionary regime. Such changes are generally density independent types of influences upon populations and ecosystems.

The basis for evolutionary speciation of new populations occurs as the result of basic shifts in ecosystem profiles of trophic-niche adaptations--ie. in ecosystemic changes that lead to new derivative patterns of interspecific relation.

Eco-trophic niche profiles define the unique combination of defining features for each organisms and for each member of a species. These profiles are complex matrices containing as many variables as can be found to occur. In such a way, individuals within species or across species can be compared by common traits or differences in values therein. Eco-trophic niche profile is an important method for the systematic comparison of trait patterns between individuals and populations. In general, the eco-trophic niche profile of a population can be taken to be the sum of the total range of eco-trophic niche profiles for each of the members, divided by the average for the entire group.

In this model, I contrast genetic traits with what I have called eco-trophic niche profiles, that latter being a systematic means of accounting for the full range of variables and limits of adaptation for an individual, population or community system. Polytrophic niche profile is also contrasted with the other two dimensions, suggesting that for many species, niches are only partially occupied, and they may in fact functionally inhabit or overlap several niches together.

In such a manner, matrix paradigms of polytrophic systems can be developed within which the relationships between individuals and types are implicit to the dimensional categories of the profiles themselves. Polytrophic systems can be taken as a measure of the achieved heterogeneity of the system.

The eco-evolutionary potential of any epoch can be determined by the absolute biomass that can be developed and sustained by the global substrate. The larger the basic biomass of the entire system, the more elaborated and heterogenous the resulting eco-trophic superstructures that can be built upon it.

We can more or less ascertain the evolutionary history of life on earth by the divergence and branching development of the so-called tree of life. This involved the emergence of all the relevant biological phyla, taxa, orders and suborders as they have occurred. Though species and entire genera may come and go with relatively rapid succession, the more basic orders remain relative stable and steadfast through the ages.

Evolutionary developments tend to proceed more rapidly at the apex and top of the pyramidal structures than at the base, which appear to be more stable in pattern. As new pyramids arise, new patterns and evolutionary pathways are being explored by living forms. Interrelationships between different eco-trophic pyramids develop in time upon multiple levels, further enmeshing the basic global system in regional and more local subsystems. Within these subsystems differential patterns of development occur that tend to influence related structures in indirect ways.

Ecosystems that develop gradually a complex equilibrium at relatively high population densities and high indices of biodiversity, exhibit a intrinsic "clockwork" in the system as a whole that serves as a factor driving the adaptation and selection of the individual organisms of that system. In a "hot" system that is operating on high metabolic rates, the energy budgets may be quite small in fact, requiring rapid turn over and replacement. Such a system is bound to drive all the organisms within its framework towards more rapid metabolic rates, etc.

This kind of phenomena I call eco-evolutionary clockwork, and once set in motion in a minimally integrated eco-system, it gradually grows, assuming an increasing degree of influence over the behavior of the system as a whole and of the constituent organisms of the system. Organisms within such a clockwork are constrained in ways by external factors that they may not otherwise be constrained in. The notion of eco-evolutionary clockwork brings us back to the notion of interharmonic, periodic oscillator mechanisms that drive coevolutionary development of complex eco-systems.

There occurs basic and long-term periodicities in the basic structural patterning of the global ecosystem that has lead to a series of major succession events. These succession events can be defined by the collapse of the dominant global ecotrophic profile of one age, defined by dominant forms at eachof the levels of the ecotrophic pyramid. Such a collapse would have been globally catastrophic, but at the same time would set the stage for a new epoch and round of renewed evolutionary development and re-release.

Succession is a clear and classic example of the functioning of an eco-evolutionary clock. If we know the types of species involved and other factors, we can guess the timing and rank order of a succession series in a given system. It is clear that species have their timing. They get old as a species, accumulating genetic "load" as well as a complex kind of adaptive equilibrium. We might say that ecosystems, to the extent that they are partially, corporate entities, have a typical series of stages that they may go through. The clockwork hypothesis is an inherent aspect of living systems as natural thermodynamic systems. The trick is that the systems fundamentally change over time by a kind of punctuated equilibrium that leads to a reorganization of the system into a completely new kind. Either systems at multiple levels achieve this kind of gradual but periodic transformation, or they will eventually pass into extinction.

The basic model I seek to employ regarding biochronics is a basic model of an interharmonic periodic oscillatory mechanism. This model concerns generally biological interactions at all levels. Models of cyclical process that reflect the fundamental and general realities of evolutionary development can be built. The model I propose is that of a periodic oscillator. Any energy system that is bound to a stable state of equilibrium, such as a fully saturated ecosystem in a range of fairly stable environmental parameters, by some "restoring" or self-regulating force, which I take to be mechanisms of social selection based on reproductive competition, will upon disturbance from its equilibrium position, "resonate" at a frequency established by the reproductive rates and death rates of the populations involved. Achieved relative equilibrium of any population is a measure of its "evolutionary inertia."

This oscillation tends to be driven periodically by a complex set of external forces that impinge upon the system in expectable intervals derived from the oscillation patterns of neighboring ecosystems.

In general, increasing competition between forms of life tend to lead to a pattern of exclusion, such that other kinds of relational values are excluded between such life forms. We can say that in general, as things tend toward relative K, things also tend toward increasing competition. In the extreme form of competition, total exclusion results in either extinction or marginalization.

Relational interactions that do not reflect direct competition, can be considered inherently and indirectly competitive, but are to be seen as efforts to maintain relative equilibrium in conditions that would otherwise result in disequilibrium or exclusion.

Thus complex social organization and patterns of counteradaptational selection and coevolutionary interdependence arise precisely in conditions where potential competition can be expected to otherwise intensify. There would be no need for social organization or for complex patterns of interdependency to arise in conditions where there is no competition as a result of saturation and relative K-states.

Thus it can be seen that competition constitutes a basic mechanism governing and leading to trait-displacement in natural selection and patterns of speciation.

Social interactions between and within groups in ecosystems tend towards increasing complexity and are difficult to generally model in realistic terms. Nevertheless, it is evident that most forms of interaction can be at least partially depicted through competition, which illustrates a basic principle. Given any two (or more) organisms (or groups) in a finite resource system, a basic density-dependent relationship is inherently established, such that increasing growth will result in competitive constraints operating between all coexisting populations. Complex patterns of symbiotic mutualism and social interaction are derivative consequences of these basic constraints. While this model describes mutual coexistence and the rise and declines of populations about some hypothesized state of optimal equilibrium, they do not describe the resulting patterns of social selection that can be expected from them.

Exclusive fitness and direct social competition are positively correlated with density-dependency and relative saturation within a system.

With increasing saturation of any system, it can be expected that social selection will manifest itself in increased rates of premature (nonreproductive) death and dampened actual instantaneous rates of birth.

In highly saturated, competitive environments, some species will increase at the expense of others that will face either extinction or marginalization.

Any system must eventually become unstable if some species cannot be displaced by exclusion from the system, or the system cannot achieve a higher threshold of equilibrium.

Unstable systems will result in relative innate competition that is density independent in its function, returning the entire system through increased death rates to a lower level of saturation. We may say that a form of nondifferential negative selection sets into the system.

This suggests that there is an inherent long-term instability of all ecosystems that will tend eventually towards disequilibrium in spite of relative states of achieved mutual equilibrium between members of the system.

We will go back to our basic formulas, and demonstrate that any presuppositions of density-dependence results in two-way interactions between any two organisms, groups, populations or species. The following kind of "interdependency" paradigm hold generally true for any kind of social interaction we may wish to represent in time or place:

A + B	B gains + 1	B neutral 0	B loses -1
A gains +1	Both gain	B 0, A + 1	B-1, A+ 1
A neutral 0	B+ 1, A 0	B 0 , A 0	B -1, A 0
A loses - 1	B+ 1, A-1	B 0, A -1	Both lose

I will call this framework a discrimination table of basic interdependencies. We may hypothesize that any interaction, or any predictable set of similar interactions, between any set of individuals, groups or populations, regardless of the specificity or inequality of the compared terms, can be placed in one of the sets of squares, and in one square only. The same interaction cannot be placed in two different squares at the same time. Thus, the absolute value of the table as a whole will be equal to total number of finite interactions or relationships recordable, within a given area over a given period of time. This might be called the functional density of an area that would be a measure of the relative density-dependency of that area as well as of the relative saturation of the area and indirectly a measure of species diversity and heterogeneity.

We would of course add cells to the table in a third dimension if we which to specify relations occurring between three or more compared terms and can be represented on an enlarged squared table. The range of possible interactions can be specified for any number of terms, as well as the degrees of freedom.

This table is called a table of interdepedencies because it presumes a basic principle of density-interdependence operating between any two or more organisms, groups, etc., within any finite system.

1. It is the natural imperative of each represented group to maximize its share of resources within an ecosystem. (innate competitiveness hypothesis)

2. Each represented group will strive to minimize its loses within the ecosystem.

3. In the growth of such systems, it can be expected that eventually the gain of some will come at the expense of others.

4. Direct competition should emerge as the result of increasing densities of populations and net saturation of the system.

The center value where interactions are "mutually neutral" would in an absolute sense be nonexistent or incorrect, if we assume a basic assumption of innate competition. But in a relative sense it is very possible to describe the mutual coexistence of different life forms that have no direct consequence upon one another. Innate competition is probably under most circumstances a residual and negligible factor in fitness and selection patterns, unless a case can be made for total supersaturation of the area in question. At the stage where innate competition would become a factor, it can be assumed that it becomes indirectly a density-independent factor, as it would probably affect all organisms in the system in the same proportionate degree. There are many contexts in which different species are not only mutually tolerant of one another, but actually indirectly codependent upon one another.

We can say therefore that relationships tend to move away from the center of neutrality in one or another direction. We can say that maximum ideal equilibrium would be achieved in the upper left-hand corner of the table, and maximum disequilibrium in the lower right-hand corner. It will be demonstrated that probably both states are never achievable, and therefore most social relationships range between the two extremes.

We must adopt a global framework of understanding the basic underpinings of the biosphere as a single integrated web of life that has long been adapted to earth, such that in time, it has come to influence and shape the geophysical aspects of the earth's surface and atmosphere. That sphere was biologically integrated from the beginning, and has undergone many periods of modification and subsequent development:

The point of departure for an approach in coevolutionary ecosystems is positing of a basic and grand level of ecological integration of all life forms as a single global ecosystem, of which all other ecosystems are a part and a subsystem of the larger framework and can only be understood within its historical-evolutionary niche. The following kind of paradigm is applied. In time, living systems influence their environments in basic ways, creating conditions that are suitable for survival and genetic stability. They tend towards establishment of a basic equilibrium of adaptation along key limiting factors.

All living systems, as a single comprehensive system, exhibit some minimal degree of integration within a bio-geophysical context that is ultimately global in size and scope. The global ecosystem defines a level of evolutionary interaction and ecosystem integration of all subsystem in fundamental and basic ways. The relationships expressed in the previous diagram between different kingdoms of life can be said to be manifest in any ecosystem that we define on earth. They constitute the biospheric substrate of the integration for all living systems on earth.The global system constitutes a substrate upon which multiple and numerous eco-trophic pyramids are evolutionarily constructed.

Within these different ecotrophic structures unique historical and evolutionary specific relations emerge and occur. All areally or temporally definable ecosystems are in essence subsystems of this larger global system, and represent the emergence of convergent/divergent pathways of evolutionary exploration and elaboration.

One model we may speculate upon in relation to general global biospherics is the hypothesis of long-term Carbon-Oxygen oscillation cycles. In general, the model predicts that carbon-dioxide levels will accumulate in contexts in which large respiratory biomass arises in conjunction with large instances of carbon sequestration through natural processes. In such a model, relative CO₂ levels fall, and oxygen levels rise. The result is a general cooling trend that leads to a collapse of a biotic ecosystem. Once such a system collapses, a new system will arise in which CO₂ is gradually released back into the environment in a new cycle, with a general warming trend that will lead to increasing plant productivity and a greenhouse effect. The result of this effect will be greater precipitation and rising sea water levels. A point will be reached in such a system when animal and respiratory biomass will gradually begin increasing. For this model to hold, it makes sense that relative levels of plant to animal tissues must gradually shift, plant growth presaging an explosion of animal growth by a significant time lag. Massive extinction of animal tissue will result in a limit of respiration, and the groundwork for a new oscillation period.

The cosmic seeding hypothesis suggests that basic organic molecules, waters, and even possible DNA may exist within the matrices of meterorites or asteroids, though how such material got there in the first place is difficult to answer. It suggests that the basic components for biogenesis may be spread throughout the universe by the collision of these bodies with different planets, depositing materials in conditions where they may take hold. It seems that the direct seeding of life in this way is highly unlikely and the explanation is rather fortuitous. It is likely that any useful material might be vaporized in its impact with its target planet. On the other hand, there is a residual possibility that basic prerequisites for life, water perhaps, may be thus deposited, and may contribute to a pre-biological seeding that fosters conditions leading to biogenesis.

Consideration of a cosmic seeding hypothesis is far fetched, but the notion of alternative biological systems springing stochastically into being somewhere in the vast reaches of outer space is not beyond plausibility. Indeed it is most likely that such systems have developed and may be even contemporaneous with our own, even though they might also be essentially out of reach.

Biological systems theory comprehends both evolutionary and ecological theory in almost equal measure, though evolutionary theory is as yet the most comprehensive theoretical construct yet produced by science. Ecological theory does not necessary follow evolutionary theory in any strict sense, and it appears as if neither takes precedence over the other in a full consideration of living systems as functional paradigms. It is apparent that as successful as evolutionary theory has been, it yet does not comprehend all fundamental aspects of living systems, and therefore it is as yet incomplete in its accounting for natural biological patterning as this occurs on earth, or may yet be found to occur in remoter regions of the universe. And therein lies the key to unlocking the mystery of such systems--given the right concatenation of events and conditions, biological systems can be expected to arise as a spontaneous result. Such systems cannot all be expected to share the same basic DNA structures. Some living systems in the cosmos might have very different kinds of transmission structures and associated molecular processes, but on basic levels of adaptation, selection and evolution, they can be expected to share similar structural patterns and similar kinds of outcomes.

I have therefore sought to weave biological systems theory in terms of a set of key perspectives that encompass both evolution and ecology as well as a number of other basic questions concerning such systems as they occur on earth. These questions are listed below and concern the issues of biogenesis, or the origins of living systems, the issues of biophysics, or the energy exchange mechanisms of living systems as complex natural machines that are self sustaining and self reproducing, and biocybernetics, or the natural forms of informational and intelligent patterning underlying living systems.

Thus it is clear that evolution by itself cannot account for all important processes that concern life forms on earth, and that from the very beginning of life on earth presented a number of dimensions and challenges in the struggle for survival that life was successfully able to overcome. From the beginning, such systems occupied complex ecological habitats and therefore constituted complex ecological machines that were in part structured by the life forms that inhabited the environments. Evolution was itself influenced in critical ways by these patterns of adaptation to the environment that was forever dynamic and changing, often in fundamentally random ways. In other words, it is nowhere clear to me even that from the very beginning ecology did not play as significant a role in shaping life as did evolution.

There is an implicit presupposition that alternative life forms have to be somehow like ourselves, or at least intelligent on some level. It seems likely that the odds for finding some form of living systems, no matter how rudimentary or primitive, are far greater than the likelihood of encountering living forms that gave rise to technological civilizations.

On the other hand, it is probably also most likely that if such alternative extraterrestrial forms of life do exist, and that almost certainly do, then we will probably encounter intelligent forms capable of searching for us, and broadcasting their own signals into space, than we will find primitive forms hidden on some distant star system.

If we encounter such forms, we are unlikely to know what they may resemble. Will they be carbon based, and respire with oxygen, and use photosynthesis for the production of sugars, and will they have DNA structures comparable to our own, or is it possible that they may be of a completely different biochemical design, breathing nitrogen and respiring chloroxides. They may not speciate in the way that we understand this process to occur. We are not likely to know much about the alternative possibilities about biological systems unless we encounter alternative life forms, or we are eventually capable of synthesizing such life forms in a laboratory experiment.

Similarly the encounter with intelligent lifeforms from another planet in the universe is likely to be even more revolutionary than merely the discovery of life on another planet, as it will lead to a fundamental reconceptioning of our own selves and sense of intelligence in the world, and it will result in a totally new form of parallax to the universe that will revolutionize all of our sciences and will also provide us an entirely new foundation for alternative technological systems. Our sense of anthropological relativity will be broken, with both positive and negative consequences. The positive consequences will be that we can then see our own knowledge and reality from a non-human point of view, with equal or superior sophistication than we ourselves seem capable. At the same time, it is liable to destory our illusion of ourselves as masters of life, and as something unique and special in the universe.

	Generalized Trait Adaptations	Specialized Trait Adaptations
r-selected	Very rapid rates of evolutionary trait differentiation	Intermediate rates of evolutionary trait differentiation
K-selected	Intermediate rates of evolutionary trait differentiation	Slow rates of evolutionary trait differentiation