Living systems are complex adaptive networks of intricate organic relationships and systemic dynamics in which context and behaviour are continuously emergent within a web of interdependent feedback loops and multidimensional interactions. It is through this dynamic flow of energy, information, material and meaning that living systems exhibit a wide range of behaviours, ranging from the microcosmic (e.g. a single cell) to the macrocosmic (e.g. an entire ecosystem). They are the source of life’s evolution, perpetual novelty, growth and increasing complexity – and the ultimate expression of nonlinearity in nature.

See also: complexity, life, relationship, systems thinking, ecology