The theory of succession from the perspective of genetic epistemology: metatheoretical analysis of complexity in Patagonia

Abstract

This paper develops a metatheoretical analysis of succession in the light of the physical and biological sciences to evaluate its predictive capacity in a specific case: the introduction of Eurasian plants to Patagonia. Succession theory is one of ecology’s most developed and consistent bodies of knowledge. With almost a century of development of statements that have strengthened its predictive power, it has not yet been a wholly accepted tool for understanding research problems in ecology and the environment. The richness of observations and empirical statements shapes both the robustness and the deficiency due to the low argumentative coherence between them. Succession does not escape the context of the epistemological debate of biological theories and evolution by natural selection, in particular, as complex and challenging to postulate in taxative or “elegant” statements as in physics and classical chemistry. Nevertheless, the history of succession from a “Piagetian” perspective keeps advances and setbacks that contrast satisfactorily with the observations and with other progress in theoretical fields of systems theory, probabilistic physics and without discounting the epistemological evolution of biological theories, which consolidate it with significant predictive power and field of development of ecology at different scales from populations to landscapes.