Soft Correlations In Layered Niche-Networks

Phil Fraundorf, Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Multiscale correlations in biological communities are sometimes challenged by limits on free energy per capita, as well as by environmental change. The standing crop of such correlations might be assessed by an inventory of niche structures focused inward and outward from the physical boundaries of skin (self), gene-pool (family), and meme-pool (culture). Such measures, with information theory roots, might be useful for monitoring the effect on communities of policy changes as well as of naturally-ocurring events. They also point the way to more explicit analysis of our relationship to those replicable codes which help and/or hinder our ability to maintain correlations, particularly in context of our shared pre-historic adaptation for supporting only five of the six niche layers mentioned above (cf. q-bio/0603011).

Slides