From abstract mimicry to ecological codes

pp. 123-136

in: Timo Maran, Mimicry and meaning, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Developing a broader ecological perspective is both a big challenge and a necessity for biosemiotics. Without an ecological ground, biosemiotics as a paradigm would remain incomplete. On the other hand, the semiotic approach could in turn offer a fresh perspective to the natural sciences for understanding ecological processes. In 1981, system ecologists Bernard C. Patten and Eugene P. Odum described an informational layer in an ecosystem with a local regulatory capacity, without which the ecosystem would fall into a mass of chaotic processes. In 2007, theoretical ecologist Søren N. Nielsen proposed that this sphere of semiotic functions in the ecosystem could be called semiotype, referring to the parallel with genotype, phenotype and envirotype. Kalevi Kull , in his several writings (Kull 1998, 2008, 2010), has expressed the view that the ecosystem is semiotic in its nature, and that semiotic processes have much to do with the integrity of ecosystems.