Biocomplexity

'Biocomplexity' is a multidisciplinary field that examines and investigates emergent properties arising from the interaction of multiple biological agents, phenomena, and systems, which may range in spatiotemporal scales, biological relationships,interactions and levels from molecules to ecosystems. Research in this area investigates the nonlinear or chaotic dynamics, unpredictable behavior, self-organization, and adaptation of living systems, aware that biological systems can display characteristics that cannot be understood through the study of individual properties alone.

Biocomplexity sheds light on the interconnectedness of life, recognizing that the behavior of biological entities emerges from the intricate interplay of countless biotic and abiotic factors. This understanding enables us to grasp how living systems can exhibit properties that go beyond the mere sum of their elements, opening up new possibilities for addressing real-world challenges in diverse fields such as medicine, ecology, and biotechnology.

To answer questions about system resilience, self-organization and adaptation, new modelling approaches have been developed and researchers are transitioning to more quantitative methods in order to better understand and analyze complex human and natural systems. These approaches focus on questions about system properties and interactions that create self-organizing or emergent behavior, and the circumstances in which unexpected system responses may occur. Analyzing the state of these systems can provide insight into system resilience, vulnerability, and management.

Primarily as a result of funding policy changes at the American National Science Foundation around 2000, some researchers have begun to use the term biocomplexity in a narrower sense to denote the complex behavioral, biological, social, chemical, and physical interactions of living organisms with their environment. This relatively new subfield of biocomplexity encompasses other domains such as biodiversity and ecology.