orthography - "Ecosystem" or "eco-system" to describe something non-biological?



If "ecosystem" (no hyphen) is defined as "a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms within their environment," should "eco-system" (hyphenated) be used to describe a system formed by the interaction of a community of non-biological (say, electronic) elements within their environment? or does it matter?



Answer



Merriam-Webster defines ecosystem as:



ecosystem, noun : an ecological community considered together with the nonliving factors of its environment as a unit



However, ecosystem has been co-opted in the press in the past few years to describe, for example, the interrelationship between Apple's AppStore and its iDevices.


Consider this article from Businessweek regarding Apple's larger ecosystem, or the matter-of-fact use of ecosystem in this article comparing the Android Market to the "more mature iTunes ecosystem."


So, to answer the first part of your question, ecosystem has come to be used in the sense of the interaction of things (iPods, iPhones, iUsers) within their environment (iTunes, the AppStore), biological or not.


To answer the second part of your question, ecosystem is not hyphenated, and hyphenating it would not create a new word with a different meaning.


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