| 1. Domain | 1.1 Scope of the Domain | Boundaries | The range of phenomena the science includes and excludes. | Examines how individual organisms interact with their physical environments through behavioral, physiological, and morphological strategies. Includes habitat selection, thermoregulation, foraging, migration, water/energy balance, and stress tolerance. Excludes full population dynamics, species interactions, and ecosystem-level processes except when directly affecting individual organisms. |
| | Scale | The spatial, temporal, or organizational level at which the science operates (e.g., quantum, cellular, social, cosmic). | Operates at the organismal and microhabitat scale: individual bodies, local environmental conditions, behavioral timescales (seconds–hours), physiological cycles (hours–days), and seasonal responses (weeks–years). |
| 1.2 Ontological Commitments | Entities | The kinds of things assumed to exist within the domain (particles, organisms, agents, fields, etc.). | Individual organisms, microhabitats, environmental resources, predators, competitors, physiological systems, morphological structures, behavioral units (actions), sensory cues, and environmental constraints. |
| | Properties | The fundamental attributes these entities possess (mass, charge, genotype, preference, etc.). | Morphology, metabolic rate, thermal tolerance, sensory capability, behavioral patterns, water balance, energetic requirements, stress responses, locomotion ability, and environmental preference ranges. |
| | Categories | The basic ontological types used to classify domain elements (substances, processes, relations, structures). | Behavioral strategies, physiological traits, morphological adaptations, habitat types, niche dimensions, resource types, stressors (thermal, hydric, predation), and environmental gradients. |
| 1.3 State-Variables | Variables | The measurable or definable properties that describe system conditions. | Body temperature, metabolic rate, hydration state, energy reserves, foraging rate, movement speed, behavioral state, environmental temperature, humidity, light level, and resource availability. |
| | Parameterization | How variables encode and represent the system’s state. | State represented by physiological measurements (heart rate, oxygen consumption), environmental metrics (temperature, humidity), behavioral time budgets, energy-balance models, and morphological indices. |
| 1.4 Admissible Idealizations | Simplifications | Conceptual reductions used to make the domain tractable (point masses, rational agents, perfect gases). | Treating organisms as optimal foragers, assuming uniform microhabitats, modeling behavior as deterministic, simplifying physiological responses to linear functions, or representing environmental variation as averaged conditions. |
| | Validity Conditions | The limits and contexts in which idealizations hold or break down. | Simplifications fail under extreme environments, complex predator–prey pressures, highly heterogeneous microhabitats, strong behavioral learning effects, or organisms with flexible/mixed strategies. |
| 1.5 Domain Assumptions | Structural Assumptions | Background ontological stances such as determinism, continuity, randomness, discreteness. | Assumes organisms respond predictably to environmental constraints, physiological processes follow consistent biological rules, behavioral strategies improve survival/fitness, and energy/water balance governs organismal performance. |
| | Implicit Commitments | Unstated but necessary assumptions that shape the field’s conceptual structure. | Assumes individuals act to maintain homeostasis, environmental cues are interpretable, behavior reflects adaptive responses, and physiological traits correlate with survival in predictable ways. |
| 1.6 Internal Coherence Requirements | Consistency | The demand that domain concepts do not contradict one another. | Behavioral, physiological, and morphological interpretations must align and cannot contradict established ecological or physiological principles across conditions. |
| | Compatibility | The requirement that entities, variables, and assumptions fit together into a unified descriptive framework. | Entities (organisms, habitats), variables (physiology, behavior), and assumptions (adaptation, constraint) must integrate into a coherent explanatory framework of individual-environment interaction. |
| 2. Evidence Layer | 2.1 Observable Phenomena | Observables | The aspects of the domain that can produce detectable signals accessible to measurement. | Observable signals include movement patterns, habitat selection, body temperature, behavioral actions, foraging rates, physiological metrics, stress responses, territorial displays, migration timing, and microhabitat use. |
| | Detection Limits | The boundaries of what can be resolved or sensed by current instruments or methods. | Minimum detectable movement distance, lowest measurable metabolic rate, limits of temperature sensors, minimal behavioral changes detectable through observation, and thresholds of environmental sensors (humidity, light, heat). |
| 2.2 Measurement Systems | Units | Standardized quantifications (meters, seconds, volts, decibels, dollars, etc.) necessary for consistent comparison. | Distance (m), time (s), temperature (°C), metabolic rate (mL O₂/hr), energy units (kJ), heart rate (bpm), hydration level (%), luminance (lux), humidity (%), and movement velocity (m/s). |
| | Instruments | Devices and tools (microscopes, spectrometers, sensors, surveys, detectors) used to produce measurements. | GPS trackers, radio collars, accelerometers, thermal sensors, environmental loggers, respirometry systems, heart-rate monitors, camera traps, observational recording tools, and automated behavioral tracking systems. |
| 2.3 Operational Definitions | Definitions | Terms defined by specific measurement procedures, ensuring empirical clarity. | Definitions for “habitat use,” “activity state,” “foraging event,” “stress response,” “territorial behavior,” “microhabitat selection,” and “locomotor performance,” each tied to measurable criteria. |
| | Procedures | The explicit steps required to perform a measurement in a reproducible way. | Standardized processes such as behavioral scan sampling, focal-animal observation, respirometry trials, controlled thermal experiments, movement tracking protocols, habitat-measurement transects, and tagging workflows. |
| 2.4 Data Acquisition | Protocols | Formal processes for gathering data under controlled or standardized conditions. | Time-series data collection of movement or temperature, environmental sampling schedules, repeated behavioral observations, physiological measurements, and controlled exposure experiments to environmental gradients. |
| | Sampling | Rules determining which subset of the domain is measured and how representative it is. | Rules for selecting individuals, time intervals, habitat patches, behavioral bouts, environmental strata, or seasonal windows to ensure representative ecological measurements. |
| 2.5 Data Character & Format | Data Types | The form raw evidence takes (time series, spectra, images, counts, qualitative records). | Movement trajectories, environmental time series, physiological datasets, behavioral logs, thermal profiles, habitat maps, activity schedules, and observational qualitative notes. |
| | Resolution | The granularity or precision with which data is captured. | Spatial resolution (cm–m), temporal resolution (seconds to hours), physiological resolution (per-measurement accuracy), and environmental-sensor resolution for temperature, humidity, and light levels. |
| 2.6 Reliability & Calibration | Calibration | Adjustment procedures ensuring instruments produce accurate results. | Calibration of temperature loggers, GPS devices, metabolic chambers, accelerometers, light sensors, humidity probes, behavioral-coding consistency, and inter-observer agreement tests. |
| | Error Characterization | Identification and quantification of noise, uncertainty, bias, and measurement error. | Noise sources include observer error, GPS drift, sensor inaccuracy, behavioral misclassification, environmental-measurement variability, respirometry noise, sample-size limits, and movement-detection uncertainty. |
| 3. Structural Layer | 3.1 Patterns & Regularities | Laws / Relations | Stable, repeatable patterns governing how observables behave across conditions. | Predictable relationships such as thermal performance curves, metabolic scaling laws, optimal foraging rules, habitat-selection gradients, homeostasis principles, and locomotion–energy relationships. |
| | Invariants | Quantities or properties that remain constant under transformations (symmetries, conservation laws). | Stable traits or patterns such as consistent thermal tolerance ranges, fixed behavioral repertoires, species-specific metabolic coefficients, conserved foraging strategies, and persistent habitat preferences across conditions. |
| 3.2 Causal Architecture | Mechanisms | Underlying processes or structures that produce the observed regularities. | Mechanisms include thermoregulation, water and energy balance, sensory–behavioral loops, physiological acclimation, predator avoidance behavior, navigation mechanisms, and morphological–functional integration. |
| | Pathways | Organized sequences of interactions forming a causal chain or network. | Ordered chains such as environmental cue → sensory detection → behavioral response; temperature shift → physiological adjustment → performance change; or resource availability → foraging decision → energy intake → survival/fitness outcome. |
| 3.3 Theoretical Vocabulary | Concepts | Core terms that encode the domain’s structure (force, gene, equilibrium, field). | Key terms include niche, microhabitat, thermal performance, acclimation, homeostasis, optimal foraging, stress response, behavioral plasticity, energy budget, and organism–environment feedback. |
| | Classifications | Taxonomies, categories, or typologies that organize entities and relations. | Categories such as behavioral strategies (foraging, mating, territoriality), physiological adaptation types (thermal, hydric, metabolic), morphological functional groups, habitat types, and environmental stressor classes. |
| 3.4 Formal Representations | Equations | Mathematical constructs expressing laws, relations, or mechanisms. | Thermal performance curves, metabolic-rate equations, optimal foraging models, energy-budget equations, locomotion–cost models, and equations relating environmental variables to organismal performance. |
| | Models | Structured representations—mathematical, computational, or conceptual—used to predict and explain phenomena. | Conceptual and computational models including energetic models, habitat-selection models, thermoregulation simulations, biomechanical movement models, behavioral-state models, and risk–reward decision models. |
| 3.5 Idealized Structures | Simplified Models | Purposeful abstractions that capture essential dynamics while omitting irrelevant detail. | Models assuming uniform environments, perfectly rational foraging, linear physiological responses, fixed behavioral strategies, or simplified morphology; coarse categories of environmental stress. |
| | Limit Conditions | Regimes where specific models or approximations hold (classical vs. quantum, linear vs. nonlinear). | Valid under moderate environmental variation, stable resource availability, predictable predator pressure, and simple behavioral contexts; break down under extreme climates, high heterogeneity, complex learning, or rapid adaptation. |
| 3.6 Integrative Frameworks | Unifying Theories | Higher-order structures that connect disparate laws or mechanisms under a coherent whole. | Integrative concepts such as the niche framework, organism–environment feedback theory, energy-budget theory, optimality theory, and adaptive-trait integration across behavior, physiology, and morphology. |
| | Interdisciplinary Links | Points where the theory connects to adjacent sciences or larger explanatory systems. | Links to physiology, animal behavior, biomechanics, endocrinology, climate science, population ecology, and evolutionary biology through shared principles of adaptation, performance, and constraint. |
| 4. Method Layer | 4.1 Inquiry Design | Experimental Design | Structured plans for manipulating variables to test causal claims. | Manipulating environmental variables (temperature, humidity, resource levels), altering habitat structure, introducing controlled stressors, modifying predation cues, or changing microclimate conditions to test organismal responses in behavior, physiology, or performance. |
| | Observational Design | Systematic approaches for gathering non-manipulated data (surveys, field studies, natural experiments). | Non-manipulative data collection using field observations, long-term monitoring, camera traps, GPS tracking, environmental sensors, behavioral focal follows, and natural experiments based on environmental variation. |
| 4.2 Testing & Validation | Hypothesis Testing | Procedures for evaluating whether evidence supports or contradicts specific claims. | Evaluating predictions about habitat choice, thermoregulatory strategy, foraging decisions, performance curves, movement patterns, and physiological tolerance through controlled tests or comparative field data. |
| | Replication | The requirement that results be independently reproducible under similar conditions. | Repeating behavioral assays, physiological measurements, movement analyses, habitat surveys, and field observations across multiple individuals, seasons, years, and locations to ensure consistency and reliability. |
| 4.3 Inference & Evaluation | Statistical Inference | Rules for drawing conclusions from noisy or incomplete data. | Applying regression models, ANOVA, GLMs, mixed-effects models, survival analysis, energetics modeling, and Bayesian inference to interpret noisy ecological, behavioral, and physiological data. |
| | Model Comparison | Criteria (fit, simplicity, predictive accuracy, robustness) used to evaluate competing models. | Comparing alternative behavioral, physiological, or energetic models based on predictive accuracy, parsimony, goodness-of-fit, robustness across environments, and agreement with empirical data. |
| 4.4 Error Management | Error Analysis | Identification and quantification of random and systematic errors. | Quantifying errors from observer bias, sensor drift, GPS inaccuracy, variation in sampling effort, behavioral misclassification, environmental-measurement noise, and physiological-instrument error. |
| | Bias Control | Methods for minimizing subjective, instrumental, or procedural biases. | Reducing observational bias via blinding of behavioral coders, standardized protocols, randomized sampling schedules, calibration of sensors, balanced habitat sampling, and consistent measurement intervals. |
| 4.5 Adjudication & Revision | Peer Scrutiny | Collective evaluation of claims through critique, review, and debate. | Review of field methods, statistical analyses, behavioral interpretations, physiological measurements, and ecological models through peer evaluation, reanalysis, and independent replication. |
| | Theory Revision | Procedures for modifying, replacing, or discarding models based on new evidence. | Updating models of behavior, habitat choice, thermal or hydric tolerance, energetic trade-offs, or performance curves when new evidence contradicts existing frameworks or reveals unaccounted mechanisms. |
| 4.6 Integrity Conditions | Transparency | Requirements to disclose methods, data, assumptions, and limitations. | Full reporting of field protocols, environmental measurements, tagging methods, sampling strategies, statistical assumptions, model parameters, and limitations in observational or experimental data. |
| | Ethical Standards | Norms ensuring responsible conduct in experimentation, data handling, and publication. | Ensuring responsible handling of animals, minimizing disturbance, adhering to welfare and permitting requirements, honest reporting of data, and ethical interpretation of organism–environment relationships. |