ABSTRACT
Christina Grozinger and Harland Patch round out this section with concrete case studies from the natural world. Looking at social honey bee colonies and plant–pollinator networks, Grozinger and Patch examine the feedback loops, interaction networks, and species characteristics that make these insects and ecological communities both resilient and vulnerable to collapse. As generalists with unique abilities to alter the makeup of their population through social interactions, honey bees are well-suited to manage shocks to their colonies. These characteristics, however, prove unsustainable in situations of chronic stress and make colonies vulnerable to collapse if they approach certain critical thresholds or tipping points. Similarly, plant and pollinator species within an ecological community form interaction networks, whose characteristics (modularity and nestedness) make them robust to shocks but can cause them to collapse under chronic stress. While the specific mechanisms that allow honey bee colonies and plant–pollinator communities to resist collapse in the face of stressors like habitat degradation, pesticide exposure, disease, and climate change are different from those available to human populations, these case studies provide a valuable conceptual framework that can be more broadly applied. An understanding of the resilience strategies used by other species, along with an awareness of how they interact with broader systemic characteristics, could prove invaluable as we work to model and develop strategies to overcome fragilities in our human systems.
