This presentation explores the conceptualization of universities as dynamic "research ecosystems," drawing upon evolutionary and biological metaphors to illuminate the cultural dynamics within these institutions. Acknowledging the limitations of such metaphors (Delanda, 2019), we define the research ecosystem as the milieu wherein academic knowledge production unfolds, with data transformed, legitimized, and narrated into facts by various disciplinary tribes. Our focus lies on understanding how these tribes, encompassing natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, employ stability, universality, and objectivity as rhetorical devices to advance their arguments, despite the inherent flux of these categories intergenerationally. This conceptual research aims to differentiate between three key aspects: firstly, identifying the enduring elements amidst change that enable convincing arguments of continuity; secondly, exploring the factors that mediate change, facilitating a bridge between past practices and present exigencies; and finally, elucidating the ways in which progenitors shape the future trajectory of knowledge creation processes for descendants. Through this tripartite ontological framework, we seek to unravel how cultural practices perpetuate themselves across generations within the research ecosystem. Conceptually, this allows us to methodologically structure our argument, which incorporates cultural practices from the disciplines of geography and tourism studies, as its empirical examples.