Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
It is possible for an ecosystem or a community to be stable in some of their properties and unstable in others. For example, a vegetation community in response to a drought might conserve biomass but lose biodiversity. [3] Stable ecological systems abound in nature, and the scientific literature has documented them to a great extent.
Stable equilibrium can refer to: Homeostasis, a state of equilibrium used to describe organisms; Mechanical equilibrium, a state in which all particles in a system are at rest, and total force on each particle is permanently zero; Balance of nature, a theory in ecological science; Stability theory, a theory in mathematics
The potential energy is at a local minimum. This is a stable equilibrium. The response to a small perturbation is forces that tend to restore the equilibrium. If more than one stable equilibrium state is possible for a system, any equilibria whose potential energy is higher than the absolute minimum represent metastable states. Second ...
Steady-states can be stable or unstable. A steady-state is unstable if a small perturbation in one or more of the concentrations results in the system diverging from its state. In contrast, if a steady-state is stable, any perturbation will relax back to the original steady state. Further details can be found on the page Stability theory.
A ball located at this point, ball 3, is in equilibrium but unstable; the slightest disturbance will cause it to move to one of the stable points. Light switch, a bistable mechanism. In a dynamical system, bistability means the system has two stable equilibrium states. [1] A bistable structure can be resting in either of two states.
The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system.
Biological thermodynamics (Thermodynamics of biological systems) is a science that explains the nature and general laws of thermodynamic processes occurring in living organisms as nonequilibrium thermodynamic systems that convert the energy of the Sun and food into other types of energy.
While the equilibrium may be disturbed by external factors, the population is considered to be in an evolutionarily stable state if it returns to the equilibrium state after the disturbance. [7] One of the base mathematical models for identifying an evolutionarily stable state was outlined by Taylor & Jonker in 1978. [7]