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The paired source and sink concepts are used increasingly in ecology and Earth sciences, but they have evolved in divergent directions, hampering communication across disciplines. We propose a conceptual framework that unifies existing definitions, and review their most significant consequences for the various disciplines. A general definition of the source and sink concepts that transcends disciplines is based on net flows between the components of a system: a source is a subsystem that is a net exporter of some living or non‐living entities of interest, and a sink is a net importer of these entities. Sources and sinks can further be classified as conditional and unconditional, depending on the intrinsic propensity of subsystems to either produce (source) or absorb (sink) a surplus of these entities under some (conditional) or all (unconditional) conditions. The distinction between conditional and unconditional …