Explicit predictions of species richness from net primary productivity: setting and discussion

Abstract

Critical problems in ecology, such as plant species richness and net primary productivity, NPP, are linked with the principal water fluxes of hydrologic sciences, evapotranspiration (plant growth), and run-off (chemical weathering and soil formation). Each of these links is established using modern physics approaches based on percolation theory from complexity studies with the resulting spatio-temporal scaling functions ultimately derived from renormalization-based methods. Approaching such problems from the perspective of the hydrologic fluxes, rather than, e.g., soil moisture content, and using such methods of physics allows application of a direct ecological optimality hypothesis (Darwin-based) regarding maximization of NPP with respect to the fluxes. This procedure opens up possibilities for a wide range of (verified) predictions in (eco-)hydrology as well as a range of discussions on Darwinian and Newtonian perspectives, the value of generalizations from thermodynamics vs. statistical mechanics, simplifications arising from focus on fluxes, rather than state variables, etc., and may provide a foundation for advancing species richness theory as well.