Bifurcation and Biodiversity

Entries from the Dictionary of Human Geography

Abbreviation of "biological diversity"... conservation of patterns and complexity... Generally understood as persistance of genes, species and ecosystems.

  <p>The Convention on Biological Diversity, presented at the United Nations 
    Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 defined biological diversity 
    as:</p>
  <p>
  </p>
...the variability umong living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.

The concern that defines our future is realization of our limited knowledge of the Earth {and/or its Ecosystem(s)/Mythos/God(s)/History(ies)}, and our attitudes towards the knowledge and understanding that this diversity is being destroyed at an increasing rate (God, Self).

  <p>There are more possibilities for the future than we can imagine. But as novelty and
  diversity are reduced in an environment, species become increasingly vulnerable to disease and mutually destructive threats, 
  so future possibilities and potentialities are diminished. Arguments over global warming, disagreement
  with projected models of climate change, are always viewed in narrow human parameters, ignoring the larger
  wider novelty of the living, breathing planet which we are a part of.</p>

Bifurcation is a change in the solution to a differential or a difference equation at a critical value of a models parameter. Three types of change are common:

  1. Jump (discontinuous step function)
  2. Linear-periodic shift (graph changes from line to oscillating periodic wave)
  3. Linear-chaotic shift (graph changes from line to oscillating chaotic wave)

Bifurcation nodes are often found found in systems with interdependencies between different system parameters. Compare shifts in atmospheric pressure to cause oscillating hurricane patterns w/ crossing of critical thresholds, eg: relationship between percentage of votes cast and percentage of seats won in a first-past-the-post electoral system.

Note: Transitions to chaos may occur in the operation (function) of population change in a society that has gone beyond an optimal limit, or crossed a sustainability threshold.