Advances in biocomplexity studies
生物复杂性研究动态

Biocomplexity, or biological complexity, is a new domain proposed by Rita Colwell and hercolleagues for better understanding of the interactions among components of complex life systems and dy-namic characteristics and evolutionary mechanism of the systems' complexity. Although the concept anddefinition of biocomplexity remain controversial, various research projects relevant to this field have beenundertaken with funding from US National Science Foundation (NSF), and a new trend in internationalcollaborative efforts to study life on Earth has been formed. In this paper, different opinions on the con-cept of biocomplexity and the relationship between biodiversity and biocomplexity studies are introducedbriefly. Several projects regarding ecosystems and genomes are also presented to illustrate the main char-acteristics of biocomplexity studies.