ABSTRACT
The Turing mechanism is a spatial example of a basic feedback process, one of the main ecological dynamical forces. Richard Levins suggests the revolutionary idea of formulating population dynamics as consisting of habitats occupied. Predators can, frequently, eat their prey so rapidly that the reproductive capacity of the prey cannot keep up with them, and the prey item disappears, which leads to the predator itself also disappearing. The new grass shoots attract grasshoppers, which eat the new shoots but fly in every direction as they become satiated. One agroecological example is the distribution of the predatory ant, Azteca sericeasur, in coffee farms in Mexico. The ant is mutually associated with a scale insect, and that association is very tight. A qualitative interpretation of the "standard" model analysis suggests a useful way of interpreting spatial pattern dynamics. Without the basic pattern formed by the ants and their scale insects, the natural control of the beetle would likely be lost.
