Also please, look at the (huge) work of Manfred Drack and David Pouvreau (thesis of 1000 pages, David Pouvreau is a french mathemacian : https://www.theses.fr/174821581) on LW Bertalanfy and the important role of Ashby.
Geographer works a lot of these questions since 1900's, and there are lot of works/simulation in the domain using Multi Agent Sytem (see journal of artificial societies https://www.jasss.org/JASSS.html).
Mathematican and physician often forget to cite their work :'(
http://www.rossashby.info/ contain so much interesting content.
Also please, look at the (huge) work of Manfred Drack and David Pouvreau (thesis of 1000 pages, David Pouvreau is a french mathemacian : https://www.theses.fr/174821581) on LW Bertalanfy and the important role of Ashby.