IAS-Research Seminar by Nei de Freitas Nunes-Neto: “Functionality and regulation in ecological and social-ecological systems” IAS-Research Seminar by Nei de Freitas Nunes-Neto: “Functionality and regulation in ecological and social-ecological systems”IAS-Research Seminar by Nei de Freitas Nunes-Neto: “Functionality and regulation in ecological and social-ecological systems”

Date and time: Monday, May 11, 11.30 am.

Location: Carlos Santamaría Building, Room B14

Speaker: Nei de Freitas Nunes-Neto (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil)

Title: Functionality and regulation in ecological and social-ecological systems 

Abstract: In this talk, I will focus on functionality and regulation of ecological and social-ecological systems, presenting an overview of the work I’m developing along this year at IAS-Research Group. The talk will be composed of two main parts. First of all, I’ll present the organizational approach of ecological functions developed in a previous work, and a possible reformulation of it, pointing to some relevant issues, such as the distinction between primary and non-primary functions and the complex relationships between different closures of constraints associated to a given ecosystem. And, second, based on the previous discussion, I’ll discuss the topic of regulation in ecological and social-ecological systems. Along the presentation, I’ll use examples of ecological or social-ecological systems (based on the following keystone species: a bromeliad, a wild bee and a dung beetle) to illustrate the general ideas.