New Biology 2023 - 2025: Topic 4 - ECOSYSTEMS

A recurring new concept that seems to permeate Topic 4 (ECOSYSTEMS) is positive feedback mechanisms and cycles and how they can exacerbate loss of biodiversity, push things towards their tipping point, and accelerate climate change itself as well as the factors and impacts associated with it.

Indeed, positive feedback loops can be powerful, demonstrating how the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. They can impart a multiplier effect leading to rapid or even exponential change.

This concept of positive feedback loop also further of course manifests itself in human physiology and metabolic and biochemical pathways as well as labour during birth, hormonal responses etc.