Alexander Oleskin — General Ecology & Hydrobiology Dept., Biology Faculty, Moscow State University
The present work deals with decentralized cooperative network structures that are contrasted with hierarchies and competition-based (quasi-)market structures. Decentralized network structures have significant potential as an organizational pattern to be used by creative teams in various spheres of society. In order to exert sufficient social (political, economic) influence and to carry out large-scale projects exemplified by those dealing with the environment, network structures should combine to form decentralized “supernetworks”. A similar challenge of joining networks into higher-order structures is met by living nature: population-level network structures of living organisms combine to form coherent local associations (communities), whose alliances are known as ecosystems. In this work, several possible scenarios of combining networks are set forth, including (i) the contract-based; (ii) the organismic; and (iii) the hierarchy–network scenario. In conclusion, a pilot project of setting up a large-scale environmental network dealing with protecting regional plant resources is outlined.