22. Universality
What will you learn in this lecture:
- Understand what is meant by a ‘universal pattern’ and provide common examples within ecology and macroecology.
- Consider the ultimate mechanisms which can give rise to them, including poor choice of data presentation, complexity science / MaxEnt, central limit theorm, extreme value statistics, dimensional scaling, and quantum ecology.
- Know how identify those patterns most likely generated by purely ecological processes.
Enrolled students of fall 2025 should watch this lecture before December 9.
What questions should you be able to answer now?
- Can you list other examples of universal patterns?
- What may be the ecological processess generating those patterns in nature?
- What is, in your opinion, most important mechanism leading to perceptions of universal patterns?
The second examination follows this lecture on the week of December 16. It covers the materials from Lectures 11-22. Please be free to use the example tests below for preparation for it. Do not forget that the tests were ment for classes which covered more topics so not all the answers were covered in this class. The questions marked in yellow were not covered during the lectures. Feel free to ask about the test at the Q&A sessions before the test.
Useful links and materials:
Nekola, J.C. & J.H. Brown. 2007. The wealth of species: ecological communities, complex systems, and the legacy of Frank Preston. Ecology Letters 10:188-196.
Nekola, J.C., A.L. Šizling, A.G. Boyer & D. Storch. 2008. Artifactions in the log-transformation of species abundance distributions. Folia Geobotanica 43:259- 268
McGill, B.J. & J.C. Nekola. 2010. Mechanisms in macroecology: AWOL or purloined letter? Towards a pragmatic view of mechanism. Oikos 119:591-603.
Draft of the first chapter from Jeff's book about Universality which is in preparation.
Featured image: Economic, geological and artistic systems display many of the same patterns as ecology.