Ecological rules asserting themselves across scale reveal hidden order uniting all living systems

Evidence

There is something reassuring about these patterns which speak of order and harmony in the way things work. But what if the forest is composed of “trees” only a centimeter tall? Are the same dynamics of gap creation and colonization also played out at a micro-scale? Dothe rules for assembling the jigsaw puzzle of a landscape also apply to mosses? Part of the fascination of working with mosses is the chance to see if and when the ecological rules of the large transcend the boundaries of scale and still illuminate the behavior of the smallest beings. It is a search for order, a desire for a glimpse of the threads that hold the world together. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 358

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This is the book’s methodological heart: whether the macro-scale rules the reader is learning (disturbance ecology, gap dynamics) hold at the micro-scale of mosses — the exact ‘scale-transcendence’ question the whole Osprey Wilds observational method depends on.
• XREF: The scale-question echoes the polyad’s shared observational method — finding the same ordering rules at moss scale that govern forest scale, bridging Kimmerer and the soundscape threads. — connects to: Predation pressure drives camouflage and mimicry inside the moss forest too — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural…, 263; Large protected ecosystems are essential testing grounds for ecological theory. — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 494; Organic cosmology held all parts of nature mutually suffer together — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 447 (+4 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Similar species can only coexist by diverging in some essential ecological way #exemplifies (0.88) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 362
• Social echo dynamics always rest on physico-chemical ecological constraints #corroborates (0.82)
• Social power arises from hierarchies interacting with rhythms and composed wholes #expands (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 368