title: On the possible operation of natural laws in ecosystems.
abstract: In this manuscript, after a brief review of the history of typological thinking in the biological sciences from Transcendentalism to Structuralism, it is argued that natural Platonic laws may operate in ecosystems. This claim is based on two observations of law-like behaviour. Firstly, that adaptation towards specialization can be considered as a form of typological lineage degeneration, where specialized species are more vulnerable to environmental perturbation. And secondly, that the convergent recurrence of biological forms indicates that there exists a finite number of niches which in the abstract could be considered as ecological analogies to Denton's molecular Platonic moulds, operating as attractors and restricting the range of possible organismal body plans based on the physical and chemical gradients that partly define their hyper-structure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK . M.A.Woodley@rhul.ac.uk
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Woodley
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D004989:Ethics; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D001503:Ursidae / Q000502:physiology