Feedbacks are the basic linkages of living systems. In living organisms, feedbacks regulate the processes of growth and homeostasis, as well as their interactions with their world. Feedbacks are equally important in ecological systems, which is why ‘feedback in ecology’ gets more than 2 million hits on Google. The ecological literature is rich in papers dealing with the role of feedback in various phenomena. However, attempts to embrace the subject of feedbacks as a whole in ecology are rare. Pichon et al. (in press) has done that, with skill and comprehensiveness. The paper succeeds in bringing the array of different types of feedbacks into a manageable order that makes this a valuable synthesis of the subject.