MAXIMUM THERMODYNAMIC ENTROPY PRODUCTION PRINCIPLE AND BIOLOGICAL TURNOVER IN TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS
Compartment dynamic models for biotic turnover based on mass-balance relations are usually calibrated by measurements of stationary storages and flows of live and dead organic matter obtained in field observations. It’s not enough for providing well-posedness of the right-hand sides of dynamical equations due to the flow functions selection is based on the expert knowledge and doesn’t guarantee it. Since thermodynamic laws are valid not only for physical but also for biological systems, it’s logical for properties of dynamic models of the biotic turnover to follow from thermodynamic extremal principles obtained for thermodynamic systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Using the maximum entropy production principle in the Gyarmati form it’s possible to establish the extremal rule of the biotic turnover functioning which provides the well- posedness of its dynamic equations and to determine requirements for the flow functions form. Observed stationary states far from thermodynamic equilibrium correspond to Prigogine’s minimum entropy production theorem that can be used for calibration of unknown system parameters.