Equivalence of throughflow- and storage-based environs

An environ is a within-system partition of the environment associated with each ecosystem component. The methodologies for calculating through flow-based and storage-based environs have heretofore been considered quantitatively and qualitatively different. Below, we show, from the fundamental environ equations, that these two approaches are mathematically equivalent by proving the throughflow-storage-equivalence relationship, E-T = E-S. This implies that ecosystem flows of energy or matter to storage and throughflow are one and the same, differing only in storage delays (flow impedances) along the way in the storage case. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.