Fig. 2. The adaptive cycle (based on Holling1986). The arrows show the speed of that flow in the ecosystem cycle; arrows close to each other indicate a rapidly changing situation and arrows far from each other indicate a slowly changing situation. The cycle reflects changes in two attributes: on the y-axis, the amount of accumulated capital (nutrients and carbon) stored in variables that are dominant keystone variables at the moment; and on the x-axis, the degree of connectedness among variables. The exit from the cycle indicated at the left of the figure indicates the stage at which a flip is most likely, into either a less or a more productive and organized system, that is, devolution or evolution as revolution.