Applying thermodynamics to understand the links between energy,
information, structure and biodiversity in human-transformed landscapes
Abstract
Both in natural and in human-made agroecosystems, biodiversity can be
understood as a direct function of landscape complexity and an inverse
function of energy dissipation. The main difference between them is the
external energy driven by farmers’ information that transforms natural
ecosystems into agroecosystems. If this is true, can an
energy-information-structure model predict biodiversity in cultural
landscapes? To that aim, we have developed an Energy-Landscape
Integrated Analysis (ELIA) that measures the energy stored through
internal loops (E) and the information incorporated into the energy
network of agroecosystems (I), to correlate them with the resulting
patterns and processes of cultural landscapes (L). This approach
integrates the energy flow accounting of agricultural landscapes from an
Ecological Economics point of view, and the Landscape Ecology metrics
that assess the functional structure of their land covers. ELIA uses the
E-I-L indicators to predict the biodiversity location in
human-transformed landscapes. We have tested this model on biodiversity
data through two different taxonomic groups, butterflies and birds, in
the metropolitan region of Barcelona (Spain). The results show positive
relationships between butterflies and birds species richness with ELIA,
and especially with the variable I: information. This emphasizes how
different strategies of agricultural management combined with nature
conservation can be approached at some optimal points in the
relationship between the energy-information-structure of cultural
landscapes and the biodiversity located on them. The ELIA modelling
opens a new research agenda that will be very useful for designing more
sustainable agroecosystems, metropolitan green infrastructures and land
use policies.