AMSR Article Featuring…
Biomimicry for Sustainability: Upframing Service Ecosystems
Gallan, A.S., Alkire, L., Teixeira, J.G. et al. Biomimicry for sustainability: Upframing service ecosystems. AMS Review (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-024-00296-4
From the Authors:
Our article explores how the principles of natural ecosystems can inform and enhance the sustainability of service ecosystems. We argue that biomimicry, learning from and mimicking the strategies found in nature to solve human challenges, offers a promising approach for catalyzing nature's wisdom to address the environmental challenges faced by service ecosystems.
Building on a biomimicry approach, our article identifies five dimensions to upframe the understanding of service ecosystems: (1) promoting mutualistic interactions, (2) building on local biotic and abiotic components supporting emergence processes, (3) leveraging (bio)diversity to build resilience, (4) fostering resource sharing for regeneration, and (5) bridging individual roles to optimize the community, rather than individual well-being. By upframing the concept of a service ecosystem through biomimicry, we introduce an ecocentric perspective, where humans are recognized as just one biotic component within a broader ecosystem, interacting with other biotic and abiotic elements to cocreate mutual value.
We propose an upframed definition of a service ecosystem as a system of resource-integrating biotic actors and abiotic resources that function in accordance with ecocentric principles to engage in mutualistic and regenerative value creation through service exchange. We also outline the application of ecological concepts to service ecosystems and key research questions associated with each concept. Overall, this research establishes a biomimetic understanding and vocabulary for sustainability in service, emphasizing the necessity of learning from natural ecosystems to inform sustainable practices within service environments.
1. What inspired you to focus on this topic?
Several years ago, the lead author, Andrew Gallan, saw a TikTok video about how different species of trees share resources through mycorrhizal fungal networks, which led him to ponder how this might parallel human service ecosystems. Andrew discussed the idea with Ray Fisk, who immediately saw its potential. Together, they began forming a research team. All five authors were independently drawn to questions at the intersection of ecology and service systems. Linda Alkire has been exploring the medical field of functional health, focusing on addressing the whole body as an interconnected system. Kristina Heinonen was conducting research on game husbandry within natural ecosystems in Finland. Jorge Teixeira has been exploring the design of ecosystems in Mediterranean forests threatened by wildfires, focusing on the interactions between forest-area communities and their natural environment. Recognizing the common threads across their work, the group came together to collectively explore how ecological and biological principles could enrich the understanding of service ecosystems. The shared inspiration was to reframe and elevate the concept of service ecosystems by grounding it in the rich and complex interdependencies observed in the natural world.
2. What marketing challenges or questions were you hoping to address with this paper?
As scholars, we often focus on micro-level phenomena, which, while valuable, can limit our ability to grasp and address the complexity of today’s sustainability challenges. These macro challenges call for a macro-level perspective on the problem. More precisely, an integrated systems view is needed that acknowledges the intricate interdependence among actors, institutions, and resources. What better model to guide this perspective than learning from nature itself, where ecosystems thrive through collaboration, adaptability, and balance? The research question in our paper is: How can the principles of natural ecosystems inform and enhance the sustainability of service ecosystems? The main challenge in addressing this question was to first upframe the conceptualization of service ecosystems and then to relate this to an emerging theory of sustainability. Based on ecological and biological concepts, our research attempts to address some of the challenges posed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
3. In what way do you hope the findings will influence future research in this area?
We hope our upframed definition of a service ecosystem, a system of resource-integrating biotic actors and abiotic resources functioning according to ecocentric principles for mutualistic and regenerative value creation, and the conceptual framework upon which it is based, will help marketing and other scholars expand their understanding of how service ecosystems may function and how to better design them to address vulnerability and human suffering. Our future work will empirically explore how human service ecosystem organizations biomimic natural ecosystems and how these organizations may redesign their relationships based on our findings to become more effective, resilient, and regenerative.
