生物系统的表示方式和生物体的功能(英语:Function_(biology))有关[2],系统是一组有明确功能的器官。在希腊罗马古典时代(例如盖伦、亚里士多德)即有此概念,但“系统”一词是近代才开始使用。例如神经系统的命名是Monro在1783年命名,但以弗所的鲁弗斯(英语:Rufus of Ephesus)(c. 90-120)是第一个将大脑、脊髓及颅脊神经视为一个解剖学单元,不过鲁弗斯对其功能描述的不多,也没有为此单元命名[3]。
It from bit and fit from bit. On the origin and impact of information in the average evolution. Includes how life forms and biological systems originate and from there evolve to become more and more complex, including evolution of genes and memes, into the complex memetics from organisations and multinational corporations and a "global brain", (Yves Decadt, 2000). Book published in Dutch with English paper summary in The Information Philosopher, http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/decadt/ (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. 2007. The Evolution of Organ Systems. Oxford University Press, Oxford, [2].
F. Muggianu; A. Benso; R. Bardini; E. Hu; G. Politano; S. Di Carlo. Modeling biological complexity using Biology System Description Language (BiSDL). 2018 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM). IEEE Xplore Digital Library. 2018: 713–717. ISBN 978-1-5386-5488-0. S2CID 59233194. doi:10.1109/BIBM.2018.8621533.
Fletcher, John (1837). "On the functions of organized beings, and their arrangement". In: Rudiments of physiology. Part 2. On life, as manifested in irritation. Edinburgh: John Carfrae & Son. pp. 1-15. link.
Swanson, Larry (2014). Neuroanatomical Terminology: A Lexicon of Classical Origins and Historical Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. link (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆). p. 489.
R. M. Brain. The Pulse of Modernism: Physiological Aesthetics in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015. 384 pp., [1] (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆).