Ecological Growth Boundaries

A Classification of Ecological Boundaries

Ecological boundaries in the context of hierarchy theory

Ecological boundaries have been described as being multiscalar or hierarchical entities. However, the concept of the ecological boundary has not been explicitly examined in the context of hierarchy theory. We explore how ecological boundaries might be envisioned as constituents of scalar hierarchical systems. Boundaries may be represented by the surfaces of constituents or as constituents thems...

Altered Ecological Flows Blur Boundaries in Urbanizing Watersheds

The relevance of the boundary concept to ecological processes has been recently questioned. Humans in the post-industrial era have created novel lateral transport fluxes that have not been sufficiently considered in watershed studies. We describe patterns of land-use change within the Potomac River basin and demonstrate how these changes have blurred traditional ecosystem boundaries by increasi...

Situatedness and Problematic Boundaries: Conceptualizing Life’s Complex Ecological Context

A key challenge in conceptualizing ecological complexity is to allow simultaneously for particularity, contingency, and structure, and for such structure to be internally differentiated, dynamically tied to its context, and subject to restructuring. Because all organisms live in such dynamic ecological circumstances, philosophy of ecology could become the leading site for addressing difficult c...

Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Sustainability and Management

Management studies on corporate sustainability practices have grown considerably. The field now has significant knowledge of sustainability issues that are firm and industry focused. However, complex ecological problems are increasing, not decreasing. In this paper, we argue that it is time for corporate sustainability scholars to reconsider the ecological and systemic foundations for sustainab...