Over the past century, ecology has evolved from classical or fundamental ecological studies into a new stage of ecosystem ecology or ecosystem science. This evolution has laid the theoretical groundwork for large-scale and global ecological research, fostering an integration of biology, geography, and environmental science, and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between natural sciences, humanities, and socio-economics. Throughout the process of integration, ecology has absorbed concepts from other disciplines to form a unique scientific knowledge and concept system framework. However, for certain concepts originating from other disciplines, such as "dimension" and "scale", their application and role in ecological research remain inadequately defined and understood. We systematically reviewed the origins and definitions of concepts such as "dimension", "scale" and "coordinate", and discussed their ecological implications in macroecosystem science. Furthermore, we explored ecosystem functions and processes across multiple disciplinary dimensions, and defined the cognitive and measurement scales of macroecosystems in terms of time, space, and organization. Based on this analysis, we integrated traditional coordinate systems to develop a multi-dimensional coordinate framework for ecosystem science, aiming to provide a multi-dimensional conceptual framework for the construction of the theoretical system of ecosystem science.
经过百余年的发展,生态学从经典生态学或者基础生态学研究扩展到了生态系统生态学或者生态系统科学的新阶段,奠定了大尺度及全球生态环境科学研究的理论基础,促进了生物学、地理学及环境科学研究的大融合,推动了自然科学、人文科学和社会经济学的学科交叉。在这一学科大融合的历史进程中,生态学不断地吸收其他学科的知识和技术,创造了本学科特有的科学知识及概念体系。然而,在多时空尺度的生态学研究中,如何准确应用这些源自其他学科的科学术语,并在扩展应用过程中赋予新质而严格的科学涵义,还缺乏深度考究及明确的生态学定义。我们系统地梳理了“维度”“尺度”“坐标”等自然科学术语的起源及原始定义,讨论了它们在宏观生态系统科学研究中的生态学涵义,进而基于多学科维度的生态系统功能与过程认知,探讨了宏观生态系统科学的认知尺度和测度尺度问题,提出了一个可以应用于宏观生态系统科学研究的多维坐标系体系,期望能够为生态系统科学的理论体系构建提供多维度概念框架。.
Keywords: ecology; ecosystem science; macroecosystem; dimension; scale; coordinate; multi-dimensional coordinate system.