Another way Mother Nature builds resilience is by being very federal in how she self-organizes. She nests her communities--which are analogous to states, counties, and towns--within a flexible framework that makes the whole more than the sum of its parts. That is, she's built on trillions and trillions of small-scale networks, starting with microorganisms and building into bigger and bigger ecosystems. But each one is a little community, naturally adapting and evolving in order to survive and thrive.