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Emergent network value

System valuation

The ecological value generated by relationships among landscape elements functioning as a network that explains why the system value of the network may differ from the sum of the stand-alone values of its component elements. Connectivity, spatial configuration, landscape complementation and supplementation, cross-boundary flows, and other interactions can enable ecological processes or population outcomes that would not occur if the elements functioned independently. Emergent network value therefore represents the portion of system value attributable to relationships among elements rather than to the elements considered separately; it explains why adding together quantified stand-alone values does not necessarily yield the quantified system value of the network.

Dunning, J. B., Danielson, B. J., & Pulliam, H. R. (1992). Ecological processes that affect populations in complex landscapes. Oikos, 65(1), 169–175. Loreau, M., Mouquet, N., & Holt, R. D. (2003). Meta-ecosystems: A theoretical framework for a spatial ecosystem ecology. Ecology Letters, 6(8), 673–679.