NEW PUBLICATION
 
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2005) Why do population density and inverse home range scale differently with body size? Implications for ecosystem stability. Ecological Complexity, 2, 259-271. Abstract, full text (PDF, 210 Kb). According to the biotic regulation concept, natural ecological communities are organized such as to ensure maximum possible stability of their environment. Fluctuations of population densities of heterotrophs lead to fluctuations of ecosystem energy flows and biomass. Thus, the stability principle demands that animal population densities must be kept within the corridor of ecological sustainability. In the present paper we show that this can be achieved via encoding the territorial requirements of animals at the species level. We present evidence in support of the statement that animals are biologically organized to occupy exclusive home range areas where no conspecific intruders are normally tolerated, this being a major mechanism of animal population numbers control in natural ecosystems. Applied to humans, this means that the need/right for a fairly large territory to be controlled by the individual is one of the most essential human needs/rights, as biologically indispensable as are, for example, the need/right for food and water. The necessity to satisfy this need make people move across large territories even when they cannot individually control them, like in the modern overpopulated cities. Human passion for tourism can be similarly explained. Deprivation of the freedom of movement (with simultaneous satisfaction of all other basic human needs like feeding, entertainment etc.) is the main punishment to which modern humans are exposed (imprisonment). Imprisonment in small cells could not become a punishment for our species if the biological organization of humans were compatible with existence on tiny areas equal to the inverse density of modern human population, about 100 square meters per individual, like in modern cities.
 
 
RECENTLY ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTS
 
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2005) Biochemical universality of living matter and its metabolic implications. Funcitonal Ecology, in press.
 
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2005) Revising the distributive networks models of West, Brown and Enquist (1997) and Banavar, Maritan and Rinaldo (1999): Metabolic inequity of living tissues provides clues for allometric scaling laws. Journal of Theoretical Biology, in press.
 
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2005) Energetics of the smallest: Do bacteria breathe at the same rate as whales? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, in press.
 
 
 

OPEN LETTER TO CITIZENS OF RUSSIA
On the long-term safety of Russia's existence (discussing the upcoming new forest code):
The planned intensification of forest exploitation in Russia will cause desertification of the most part of the country.
In Russian. Addressees and responses.

NEW PUBLICATION
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Losev K.S., Dovgalyuk Yu.A. (2004) Dependence of greenhouse effect on the concentration of greenhouse components in the Earth atmosphere in the presence of non-radiative energy flows. Transactions of the Earth Sciences Section of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, No. 12 (2004), 125-135, in Russian.
 
 
YOUR QUESTIONS ON BIOTIC REGULATION
Brief answers to four fundamental questions asked by an anonymous visitor on 16 December 2004:
   What is the importance of natural biota?
   What are the economic benefits of natural biota?
   What are the causes of natural biota's extinction?
   What are the technical solutions to protect natural biota?
 
 
BIOTIC REGULATION IN DAILY LIFE
"On the occasion of Russia signing the Kyoto protocol: Climate warming or climate collapse?" by A.M. Makarieva and V.G. Gorshkov in section Biotic regulation in simple words.
 
 
BOOKS ON BIOTIC REGULATION
The first chapter of the Russian edition of V.G. Gorshkov's "Physical and biological bases of life stability" (1995, VINITI Press, Moscow, 470 pp.) is now available in html format, with other chapters to come, see contents.
 
 
NEW PHOTOS
Fox; forest and river; Daphne mezereum in blossom; forest and sea; youth of ferns.