Ecological complexity for unifying ecological theory across scales: A field ecologist's perspective

The evening session in ecological complexity at the last Joint Meeting of the International Association for Ecology (INTECOL) and the Ecological Society of America (ESA) held in Montreal was an occasion to evaluate the pertinence and upcoming challenges of the complex systems approach (CSA) applied to ecology. Through concepts such as the interaction topology among biological objects, the phenotypic integration of individual traits, the meaning of biological objects and complexity measures in space and time, the management of human dominated ecosystems, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics as a paradigm for the development of ecosystems, the panel members covered some of the most active areas of research in ecological complexity. However, for many ecologists, and particularly field ecologists, a comprehensive framework clearly emphasizing how and why the CSA provides a unique corpus for studying ecosystem functions is missing. The purpose of this article is thus to provide an overview of the different themes visited during the evening session and to emphasize the distinctiveness of the CSA as an alternative to contemporary ecological issues. Examples from functional ecology and food webs are given to support the discussion.