Edited by
Miguel Maroto
Nicholas A.M. Monk

2009

Living systems are fundamentally dynamic and adaptive, relying on a constant throughput of energy. They are also, by definition, self-sustaining over the full range of length and time scales (from sub-cellular structures to species considered as a whole). This characteristic combination of constant adaptive flux and emergent persistence requires that the properties of all living systems must, at some level, be cyclical.