Ecosystems are Made of Semiosic Bonds: Consortia, Umwelten, Biophony and Ecological Codes

Abstract

The paper focuses on the semiotic principles of the organisation of ecosystems, attempting to find concepts that point to relations and not to elements.(1) Consortium (the term introduced by Johannes Reinke around 1873) can be defined as a group of organisms connected via (sign) relations, or groups of interspecific semiosic links in biocoenosis. The consortial relations include trophic and topic relations, both implying a recognition (identification) of the object by an organism involved (these, i.e., are sign relations). These relations are ecologically inheritable.(2) Umwelt (the term introduced by Jakob von Uexküll around 1909) can be defined as a set of relations an organism has in an ecosystem (as in a semiosphere). The formation of an umwelt is dependent on the modelling system of the organism. (3) Biophony (the term introduced by Bernie Krause around 2000) denotes the coordination of inter-and intra-species relations in a soundscape of a biological community. This can be seen as a special case of Komposition as defined by Jakob and Thure von Uexküll. (4) Ecological code (as introduced, e.g. by Alexander Levich around 1977) can be defined as the set of (sign) relations (regular irreducible correspondences) characteristic to an entire ecosystem. We also mention the concepts of ecomones and coactones (introduced by Marcel Florkin in 1965) as the substances which are responsible for mediation of ecological inter-individual relations. All the relations as sign-relations evidently imply both a static or structuralist description (in terms of codes), and a processual description (in terms of semiosis carried on by interpretation). We conclude that all the above mentioned concepts can be viewed as conceptually connected and are suitable for semiotic description of biological communities.

Why Language Evolution Needs Memory: Systems and Ecological Approaches

“…Modern studies of non-genetic ('ecological', 'behavioral' 'cultural') heritability show that processes of inheritance are not implemented only on the level of single living organisms (Danchin et al 2011;Kull 2010). Larger biological systems (for instance, bee or ant colonies) can be viewed as distributed, multi-agent memory and semiotic systems that maintain, transmit, and reproduce the whole system and its elements.…”

“…At the level of social animals, it is common that genetically determined 'behaviour traits' are bootstrapped or scaffolded by new ones that are transmitted through so-called social ('behavioural', 'cultural', 'ecological') inheritance systems (Jablonka and Lamb 2006;Kull 2010Kull , 2014. For instance, bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay culturally inherit the usage of marine sponges as tools (protective covering) to hunt fish on the sea floor (Krutzen et al 2005).…”

A Biosemiotic Perspective of the Resource Criterion: Toward a General Theory of Resources

“…We also discuss the strict relationship between ecology and biosemiotics, so important that we believe that a specific field of investigation could exist (e.g., Kull 2010).…”

Alexandr Levich (1945–2016) and the Tartu–Moscow Biosemiotic Nexus

“…[...] The point is that the communities themselves are in a certain sense languages, or, better to say, texts, made of "words" -of individuals. (Levich, Mikhailovsky 1979a: 13) 21 See also Kull 2010Kull , 2016aKull , 2016b It may be that Levich did this under the infl uence of reading C. H. Waddington's symposia papers on theoretical biology (the fi rst volume was published also in Russian -Waddington 1970), in particular the work of Howard Pattee (as supposed by Sergej Chebanov in our conversation in Tartu on 3 May, 2016). Levich (1983: 68) also writes:…”

“…See the overview in Laanisto et al 2014. 9 More about this in Kull 1978;1999: 122;Levich, Mikhailovsky 1979b. While semiotics of culture was already a well-established discipline in the 1970s, biosemiotics was only making its first steps.…”