新世纪的挑战—生物复杂性研究

The Challenge of a New Century——Biocomplexity Studies

复杂性是生物学的固有属性。生物学系统 ,从细胞到生态系统 ,总是包含大量的以复杂方式相互作用的部分。尽管目前我们已经获得了大量关于这些组分的数据 ,但是实际上对所有复杂的生物学系统 ,我们都缺少一个真正的定量的和综合的整体的认识。研究生物复杂性是二十一世纪科学面临的一大挑战。本文介绍了美国国家科学基金会的生物复杂性研究计划 ,并通过一些例子对生物复杂性研究涉及的相关方面作了探讨。

Complexity is an inherent property of biology. Biological systems, from cells to ecosystems, invariably consist of large numbers of parts that interact in complex ways. Although we have acquired the immense amounts of data about many of the individual parts, we lack a true quantitative and integrative understanding of virtually all complex biological systems. Biocomplexity provides a challenging theme for the science of the 21th century. This paper introduces the biocomplexity project of the USA National Science Foundation, and gives explainations of related aspects concerning the biocomplexity study by providing a number of examples.