Ecotone

“ How can we better define the transitions between communities, both biological and social?”

An ecotone is the transition area between two biological communities. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local, such as the area between a field and forest, or regional, such as the transition between forest and grassland ecosystems.¹ Importantly, ecotones are not exclusively characterized as sharp boundary lines between two distinct biological communities, but rather may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area.²
        Ecotones are measured according to their suitability as a habitat for species. If different species can survive in both communities, then the ecotone is considered to have species richness.
        In 1859, naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, best known for conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection who jointly published with Charles Darwin on several writings in 1858,³ coined the term ecotone after having first studied the boundaries between two biomes. The word ecotone is a combination of ecology and tone, from the Greek tonos, which is a place where ecologies are in tension.
Ecotones are cultural as well as ecological. Although beginning with the biology field, the term has been transposed to social sciences in the recent past. Cultural ecotones are the intersections between distinct cultures where there is social interaction and interchange of knowledge, skills, and resources. They are a connective tissue between cultures and have existed since the first differentiation of communities. Throughout history, humans have settled at ecological ecotones because of the increased diversity of resources they offer as food, medicine, and shelter.

Image source: ‘Wallace, Alfred.™On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type∫. The Alfred Russel Wallace Page hosted by Western Kentucky University. Archived from the original on 29 April 2007. Retrieved 22 April 2007.3