Stakeholder theory is one of the more developed domains of scholarship that considers relationships between businesses and non-human phenomena, yet the current literature lacks the level of particularity and ecological interdisciplinarity needed to help firms understand their relationality with living non-human ('biodiverse') nature, and in turn sustainably manage those relations. This conceptual paper draws on ecological theory and research to develop interdisciplinary tools that can aid researchers and businesses in their work on stakeholder identification and management of relations with living nature. It does this by focusing on the implications of firm activities for the evolutionary fitness of living nature, and from there arguing that, according to ecological theory, populations should be the unit of analysis when it comes to business stakeholder relations with biodiverse nature. Building on that argument, and drawing on additional ecological theory and research, the paper develops three attributes of business relations with biodiverse populations: 1) geographic overlap, 2) anthropogenic resource consumption, and 3) an ability to compete in natural contexts. Grouping these attributes creates five categories of populations of biodiverse stakeholders, which we posit encompass all possible stakeholder relations among firm activities and biodiverse populations. Taken together, our work articulates a theory of the ecological salience that firm activities have for living nature, complementing existing work on the salience that both humans and nature have for managers. In addition, it provides the foundation for the ensuing development of a broader Stakeholder Ecology.
