A food web with 20 populations

A food web containing twenty populations can generate thousands of loops of up to twenty links in length. But instead of forming a disordered cacophany, feedback loops in ecological systems play together, creating regular patterns just like multiple instruments, coming together to create a complex but harmonious piece of music. Wide-ranging negative feedbacks keep the positive feedbacks in check, like drums maintaining a rhythm. You can look at the way a particular ecosystem functions within its unique habitat as representing its trademark sound.