Translating information across spatial and temporal scales requires understanding both how hierarchical organization is constructed and when it breaks down. The range of conditions under which a specific hierarchical organization maintains itself bound the application of scaling relationships derived for that hierarchical organization. These boundaries can be assessed by analyzing self-organizing processes that define ecological organization. Self-organization occurs as nonlinear processes interact with one another and environmental heterogeneity. As small fast processes repeatedly interact with one another, these interactions may produce a larger slower structure that constrains the behavior of the small processes in such a way that they mutually reinforce one another.
Ecosystems consist of the interactions between biotic and abiotic processes.
Historical and current species extinctions and invasions have focused ecological interest on the role of species in the functioning of ecosystems. The variety of functions that a species can perform is limited, and consequently ecologists frequently have proposed that increases in species richness increases functional diversity. Often the analysis of ecological function has been confounded by scaling effects. Peterson suggests that ecological function and ecological organization can more clearly be understood when they are considered as emerging from a process of self-organization. Resilience as an Emergent Property Species perform many different types of ecological functions.