ABSTRACT
When you see the spots on a jaguar’s coat, the changing shapes of a flock of blackbirds against the evening sky or a visual representation of the links formed through social media like Facebook, a pattern is evident. Yet there is no prime mover causing the spots to be where they are, or the shifting waves of birds, or the knotted tangle of internet connections. Something in the way in which the elements of these systems interact with one another makes a sort of spontaneous pattern pop out. The organization comes from within, and consequently we refer to it as a “self-organized pattern.” In the previous chapter, we presented some ideas about spatial patterns, emphasizing the effect that the spatial structure of agricultural matrices has on biodiversity. However, the impact of spatial structure on populations is only one side of the issue. More recently, the reverse process has become a focus of ecological research. Rather than spatial patterns affecting populations, we now understand that populations sometimes make spatial patterns. Rather than organisms responding as innocent pawns to underlying spatial structure, biological forces among them act in such a way as to cause the emergence of spatial patterns. 1 In this chapter, we explore these self-organized patterns and their consequences for the coffee agroecosystem.
