Journal
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 31, Issue 8, Pages 622-632Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.04.009
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Funding
- James S. McDonnell Foundation
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
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Social-ecological systems research suffers from a disconnect between hierarchical (top-down or bottom-up) and network (peer-to-peer) analyses. The concept of the heterarchy unifies these perspectives in a single framework. Here, I review the history and application of 'heterarchy' in neuroscience, ecology, archaeology, multiagent control systems, business and organisational studies, and politics. Recognising complex system architecture as a continuum along vertical and lateral axes ('flat versus hierarchical' and 'individual versus networked') suggests four basic types of heterarchy: reticulated, polycentric, pyramidal, and individualistic. Each has different implications for system functioning and resilience. Systems can also shift predictably and abruptly between architectures. Heterarchies suggest new ways of contextualising and generalising from case studies and new methods for analysing complex structure-function relations.
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