* ''In any study of an ecological system, an essential early procedure is to draw a diagram of the system of interest ... diagrams indicate the system's '''boundaries''' by a solid line. Within these boundaries, series of components are isolated which have been chosen to represent that portion of the world in which the systems analyst is interested ... If there are no connections across the systems' boundaries with the surrounding '''systems environments''', the systems are described as ''closed''. Ecological work, however, deals almost exclusively with ''open'' systems.''<ref>{{cite book |title=Systems ecology : an introduction to ecological modelling|last=Kitching, R. L. (Roger Laurence), 1945-|publisher=University of Queensland Press|page=11|date=1983|isbn=0-7022-1813-8|oclc=8845946}}</ref> | * ''In any study of an ecological system, an essential early procedure is to draw a diagram of the system of interest ... diagrams indicate the system's '''boundaries''' by a solid line. Within these boundaries, series of components are isolated which have been chosen to represent that portion of the world in which the systems analyst is interested ... If there are no connections across the systems' boundaries with the surrounding '''systems environments''', the systems are described as ''closed''. Ecological work, however, deals almost exclusively with ''open'' systems.''<ref>{{cite book |title=Systems ecology : an introduction to ecological modelling|last=Kitching, R. L. (Roger Laurence), 1945-|publisher=University of Queensland Press|page=11|date=1983|isbn=0-7022-1813-8|oclc=8845946}}</ref> |