STUDIES INTO ABSTRACT PROPERTIES OF INDIVIDUALS - II - ANALYSIS FOR EMERGENCE IN POPULATIONS, SPECIES, AND A SPECIES-PAIR

Populations, species, and a species-pair were analyzed for emergence, the inability of lower hierarchical levels to specify the properties o f higher levels. It was detected in three of four populations, both sp ecies and the species-pair. The almost ubiquitous nature of emergence implies it is a property of organized systems. As such, emergence cann ot be used to argue for a special ontological individual-like status f or species. The degree of emergence, the difference between lower and higher hierarchical levels, was greatest for the species-pair followed , in sequence, by the individuals (the results from a previous study), the single species, and the populations. This sequence can also be vi ewed as one of decreasing complexity and, if individual plants are exc luded, evolutionary diversification. The degree of emergence in indivi dual plants likely results from variation in a highly constrained syst em, one more constrained than a population or species because of the p hysical boundary (collective cell membranes) of a plant. Constraint in groups of individual plants is the result of a unique history. A poss ible cause and effect relationship linking ontogeny and phylogeny is v ariation and constraint, the cause, and irreversible change, the effec t. Variation and constraint may, in turn, be the effect of an entropic informational increase and self-organization.