When hiking through an aging natural forest, did you ever accidentally burst your foot through an old log and see the wood fibers crumble while bugs and worms scuttle away into the moss or wiggle around your hiking boot? That is a moment to not only gaze at the young shoots, but also appreciate the secrets of an ecosystem’s functionality. Effective decomposition is vital, contradictory as this may sound, to every functioning ecosystem. It liberates resources for re-composition into new uses and, eventually, new structures. Another characteristic of a successful ecosystem is its ability to respond to disruptions and function with resilience. All ecosystems, science says, are exposed to disturbances. They can range from your boot interrupting the decomposition of that rotten tree to a volcanic eruption that spews an ocean of hot ash for miles around. Either event will disrupt the ecosystem and change it but even a mass
