Nature Positive Practices

Earlier this week, we marveled at how the Arctic tern leverages cyclic processes at a global scale in its impressive pole-to-pole endless summer migration cycle. Now, let's look at an organism that masters cyclic processes at the local level. The marsh periwinkle (Littoraria irrorata) is a small, ecologically significant snail that thrives in the intertidal salt marshes of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, where it exploits the rhythmic rise and fall of the tides to feed and evade predators. This snail primarily inhabits Spartina alterniflora, or smooth cordgrass, where it engages in a unique form of farming, a cycle of deliberately damaging the grass blades through grazing and then depositing feces in the wounds as fertilizer to promote fungal growth, which it then consumes as its preferred food source. By climbing the stems during each high tide, periwinkles avoid estuarine predators such as blue crabs and diamondback terrapins. They return to the marsh's muddy substrate with each low tide to retain moisture and feed on algal mats or decaying cordgrass. The periwinkles are also attuned to cyclic temperature changes in the day/night cycle, sealing themselves up inside their shells with mucus to prevent drying out when daytime temperatures rise beyond threshold levels. Their reproductive cycle may also be tuned to marsh cycles. Egg-laying peaks in summer when the Spartina grass becomes desner to shelter developing juveniles. Once released into the estuarine waters, periwinkle babies undergo a planktonic phase before settling back into the marsh, ensuring that each generation is synchronized to leverage the the cyclical habitat dynamics of this ever-changing salt marsh environment.

Nature Positive Practice: Leverage Cyclic Processes

Salt Marsh Periwinkles thrive in a complex, dynamic ecosystem because they have aligned their rhythms to the two cyclic patterns that matter most to their survival: tides and temperature. You also live within dynamic living systems at school, at work, in your community, or at home. Thus, you can emulate the periwinkle’s evolutionary intelligence through a process of observation, reflection, and adaptation. Start by reflecting on of all the cyclic processes and patterns around you. These might include your organization’s planning calendar, your family’s weekly schedule, your garden's planting and harvesting cycles, your kids’ school year, conferences you attend each year, etc. Then, like the periwinkle, identify the ones that have the greatest impact on your life. If you are in an operations role, it’s vital that you design your cadence around key processes and timelines. If you run a community gardening project, your rhythms will necessarily align to the seasons. Conversely, if you desperately need rest, the family’s weekly schedule might be the most important pattern right now. Finally, consider what adaptations would enable you to harmonize with those cyclic processes for greater ease, efficacy, performance, and joy.

Go Outside

On your next excursion into nature, notice how plants and animals in your environment are tuned to the rhythms of the days and the seasons. Think of a body of work that was somehow much harder than it should have been. Contrast that with another project that flowed almost effortlessly. How might cyclic processes have played a role in each of those experiences?