Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. A new enthusiasm grips agriculture today. Across the globe all farmers are moving toward rethinking the foundations by embracing the idea that the science of ecology should be at the foundation of agriculture. Ecology is not an old and venerated discipline. It is implausible to be controversial to suggest that ecological systems can be very complicated. Multiple species interact with one another as competitors, predators, behavior alterers and more, with population-level processes such as extinction and migration imposed on top of such a complicated system. Recent advances in the science of ecology merely enrich the fundamental principles that the Indian farmers taught Gabrielle Matthaei and Albert Howard. The book presents what we think are generalizations. It identifies seven topics which encapsulate the ecological complexity context: turing processes and spatial structure, chaotic dynamics, stochastic processes, coupled oscillators, multidimensionality, trait-mediated indirect interactions, and critical transitions.