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7 - Qualitative Emergence from Quantitative Changes

The Inevitability of Surprise

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2024

John Vandermeer  and
Ivette Perfecto
John Vandermeer
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ivette Perfecto
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Summary

In this chapter we use the historical example of the coffee leaf rust pathogen to illustrate various issues of agroecology, emphasizing the ecological concepts of critical transitions, hysteresis, and ecological regime change – an example from basic ecology of the dialectical principle of transition from the quantitative to the qualitative. Beginning with the plantation system and its social and ecological importance, we review the basic ecology of the coffee rust disease and show how the sociopolitical arrangement of the plantation system interpenetrates the biological realities of the pathogen to create conditions for the critical transition.

Keywords

coffee rustcritical transitionhysteresisdisease transmission
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The Dialectical Agroecologist , pp. 135 - 152
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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