In the context of an evolving information society, the term information ecology marks a connection between ecological ideas with the dynamics and properties of the increasingly dense, complex and important digital informational environment and has been gaining acceptance in a growing number of disciplines. "Information ecology" often is used as metaphor, viewing the informational space as an ecosystem. Proposed by Alexei Eryomin the concept of information ecology which is essential, is widely applied and broadly construed. In further, when conducting its own studies, the contribution of Eryomin in the development of the scientific direction "information ecology", refer to his early base article - scientists USA, China Finland, France, Poland,, Canada, et al. Information ecology also makes a connection to the concept of collective intelligence and knowledge ecology. Eddy et. al. use information ecology for science-policy integration in ecosystems-based management.
Language of ecology
Information ecology draws on the language of ecology - habitat, species, evolution, ecosystem, niche, growth, equilibrium, etc. - to describe and analyze information systems from a perspective that considers the distribution and abundance of organisms, their relationships with each other, and how they influence and are influenced by their environment. The virtual lack of boundaries between information systems and the impact of information technology on economic, social and environmental activities frequently calls on an information ecologist to consider local information ecosystems in the context of larger systems, and of the evolution of global information ecosystems. See alsolist of ecology topics.
In The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, a book published in 2006 and available under a Creative Commons license on its own wikispace, Yochai Benkler provides an analytic framework for the emergence of the networked information economy that draws deeply on the language and perspectives of information ecology together with observations and analyses of high-visibility examples of successful peer production processes, citing Wikipedia as a prime example. Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O'Day in their book "Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart," apply the ecology metaphor to local environments, such as libraries and schools, in preference to the more common metaphors for technology as tool, text, or system.
In different domains / disciplines
Anthropology
Nardi and O’Day’s book represents the first specific treatment of information ecology by anthropologists. H.E. Kuchka situates information within socially-distributed cognition of cultural systems. Casagrande and Peters use information ecology for an anthropological critique of Southwest US water policy. Stepp published a prospectus for the anthropological study of information ecology.
Knowledge management
Information ecology was used as book title by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, with a focus on the organization dimensions of information ecology. There was also an academic research project at DSTC called Information ecology, concerned with distributed information systems and online communities.
There has also been increasing use of "information ecology" as a concept among ecologists involved in digital mapping of botanical resources, including research by Zhang Xinshi at the Institute of Botany of the China Academy of Science; also see a presentation to the Information Ecology SIG at Yale University's Forestry School.
Human Ecology
From the analysis of specific examples of the nature and physiology are determined 10 axioms and laws of information ecology, which serves as the basis for creating information strategies and tactics in social, economic, political and other spheres that affect human health and human communities.
Eddy et. al. use principles of information ecology to develop a framework for integrating scientific information in decision-making in ecosystem-based management. Using a metaphor of how a species adapts to environmental changes through information processing, they developed a 3-tiered model that differentiates primary, secondary and tertiary levels of information processing, within both the technical and human domains.
