System-Level Interactions - Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems - page 169

Section III
System-Level Interactions
With a grounding in the autecological knowledge developed in Section II, we can now expand our perspective to the
synecological level — the study of how groups of organisms interact in the cropping environment. This whole-system
perspective stresses the need for understanding the emergent qualities of populations, communities, and ecosystems,
and how these qualities are put to use in designing and managing sustainable agroecosystems.
Chapters 13 and 14 begin at the population level, exploring the population ecology of mixtures of species in the
crop environment and the management of genetic resources. Chapter 15 examines species interactions at the community
level, explaining the benefits of complexity and the role of cooperation and mutualisms in sustainable agriculture.
Chapters 16 through 18 cover a range of important ecological concepts — including diversity, stability, disturbance,
succession, and energy flow — that function at the ecosystem level, showing how these emergent qualities of whole
systems are key aspects of agroecosystem design and management. To conclude Section III, Chapter 19 explores the
role of livestock animals in agroecosystems, with a focus on creating integrated food production systems.