A useful correspondence between fluid convection and ecosystem operation

Abstract

Both ecological systems and convective fluid systems are examples of open systems which operate far-from-equilibrium. This article demonstrates that there is a correspondence between a resource-consumer chemostat ecosystem and the Rayleigh-Benard (RB) convective fluid system. The Lorenz dynamics of the RB system can be translated into an ecosystem dynamics. Not only is there a correspondence between the dynamical equations, also the physical interpretations show interesting analogies. By using this fluid-ecosystem analogy, we are able to derive the correct value of the size of convection rolls by competitive fitness arguments borrowed from ecology. We finally conjecture that the Lorenz dynamics can be extended to describe more complex convection patterns that resemble ecological predation.