Ecology
9 patterns in this domain
“Let it break down — something better emerges”
3/7 frontierControlled Decomposition
About 9,000 years ago, someone left a jar of grape juice too long in the Caucasus heat.
“Different melodies, one harmony”
3/7 frontierCounterpoint
Johann Sebastian Bach's fugues are the most celebrated demonstration of counterpoint in Western music.
“Don't fight the seasons — move with them”
3/7 frontierCyclical Migration
Every year, 1.5 million wildebeest, 200,000 zebras, and 500,000 gazelles cross the Serengeti in one of Earth's greatest spectacles.
“Reclaim what's no longer needed”
3/7 frontierGarbage Collection
In 1959, John McCarthy was working on Lisp, one of the first programming languages, and hit a fundamental problem: programs allocated memory to store data, but programmers were terrible at freeing it when they were done.
“Small piece, whole system depends on it”
3/7 frontierKeystone Node
In 1969, ecologist Robert Paine was studying tide pools on the Washington coast when he made a discovery that would reshape how we think about systems.
“Don't compete — differentiate”
3/7 frontierNiche Partitioning
On a single Caribbean island, you can find five or six species of anole lizard living on the same tree.
“Build the structure, and life will come”
3/7 frontierPlatform Ecosystem
A coral polyp is a simple organism — a tiny soft-bodied animal smaller than a pencil eraser.
“Split the world into manageable pieces”
3/7 frontierSharding
The concept predates its name.
“Touch one thread, the whole web moves”
3/7 frontierTrophic Cascade
The term comes from ecology.