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The Adaptive Cycle

Plate I  ·  Field notes on change

One loop, thirteen ways of seeing it

Ecologists call it the adaptive cycle: growth, rigidity, collapse, reorganization. Pick a framework below to see how other disciplines describe the same loop, and where the fit gets forced.

    The adaptive cycle as a figure eight A slow front loop runs from reorganization to exploitation to conservation. A fast back loop runs from conservation through release back to reorganization. Labels show the selected framework's name for each phase. POTENTIAL ↑ CONNECTEDNESS → α · REORGANIZATION K · CONSERVATION r · EXPLOITATION Ω · RELEASE
      Front loop · slow, accumulating Back loop · fast, disruptive

      Left off on purpose: Three Horizons, Perez's technological surges, and punctuated equilibrium. They describe overlapping or stacked timescales, not a single loop, and forcing them onto this figure would misrepresent them.

      Karla Starr · kstarr.com