---
slug: asymmetric_source_sink_coupling
name: Asymmetric Source-Sink Coupling
one_liner: "A network of coupled units with asymmetric net production, where surplus-exporting sources sustain deficit sinks that would collapse in isolation, so the aggregate persists only through the export-import flow."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, economic, biological]
origin_domain: population_ecology
alternate_origin_domains: [economics_and_trade, monetary_policy, physiology]
aliases: [subsidized_deficit_units, surplus_export_dependency, net_flow_asymmetry_persistence, donor_sink_network, sustained_by_import]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `source_sink_habitat` (lift: strip the ecological population framing and keep only the structural fact of coupled units with asymmetric net balance where net-producers sustain net-consumers that would collapse alone). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B (B-rest) candidate. Domain-spread flag: siblings claimed span international trade (core-periphery dependency), monetary policy (central-bank liquidity support), and physiology (donor-recipient organ perfusion) — three genuinely unlike coupled systems. Distinctness flag: proposed distinct from existing `buffering`/reserve primes (which store-and-release over TIME within a unit; this genus is a spatial/topological SUBSIDY across units)."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `source_sink_habitat` (the input) and any `buffering` / reserve / redistribution / gradient-flow prime; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the input AND the trade/central-bank/perfusion siblings) and not a restatement of the input, nor an alias of a buffering or redistribution prime; draw a subsumption edge input→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 3
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — a set of coupled units differing in net per-unit balance, where surplus units export to deficit units, and the deficit units persist only because of the import (they would decline monotonically to collapse in isolation), so system-level persistence is a property of the coupling topology and the export-import flow rather than of any single unit — is a clean network/flow relation. It is genuinely medium-neutral: it recurs across ecology, trade, monetary systems, and physiology, which is real breadth and high structural abstraction. Transfer evidence sits at 3 because the clearest formalizations are ecological and economic; the physiological instance is more analogical. Composite 4: a strongly substrate-independent topological/flow structure, materially above its habitat-specific input.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: source_sink_habitat
  similarity: 0.68
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.24
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.1, evaluative_weight: 0.1, institutional_origin: 0.3, human_practice_bound: 0.3, import_vs_recognize: 0.3}
  rationale: 'The pattern is a flow-network structure: coupled units with asymmetric net balance, sustained by an export-import subsidy across the coupling. It carries essentially no evaluative content, its vocabulary (source, sink, net balance, export, import, coupling) travels across ecology, economics, and physiology, and it is recognized as a bare topology rather than imported as a doctrine. Reads clearly structural.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Asymmetric Source-Sink Coupling

## Core Idea

The genus is this bare structure: a set of units is coupled by a flow (of individuals, money, mass, energy), and the units differ in *net per-unit balance* — some are *sources* that run a surplus and export it, some are *sinks* that run a deficit and would decline toward collapse in isolation. The whole system persists only because sources export a subsidy that keeps sinks above the line they could not hold alone. Persistence is therefore a property of the *coupling topology and the export-import flow*, not of any single unit: cut the flow, and the sinks fail. The one constraint stripped from the input `source_sink_habitat` is the *ecological population framing* — the input is specifically about organisms across habitat patches (births/deaths, dispersal, per-capita reproductive surplus) — whereas the genus keeps only the abstract source-sink-coupling structure over any flowed quantity.

The load-bearing anatomy has three parts. First, *unit-level asymmetry of net balance*: independently, some units grow (sources) and some shrink (sinks). Second, a *coupling that carries surplus from producers to consumers*: the export from sources reaches sinks through the network. Third, *sink-dependence on the subsidy*: the sink's persistence is contingent — it is above its collapse threshold only because of the import. The characteristic payoff is *system-level persistence and reach*: the aggregate occupies and sustains territory (habitat, market, region, tissue) that could not be held by the sinks alone, effectively extending the source's productivity across the network. The characteristic cost/failure is the mirror: the system harbors *hidden fragility* — sinks that look stable are in fact demographic (or fiscal, or physiological) debtors, so a shock to the source, or a severing of the coupling, collapses the sinks abruptly and can mask the true carrying capacity, leading observers to overestimate the sinks' independent viability.

Walk the claimed siblings and the lift shows across structurally-unlike domains. In *international trade*, a core-periphery dependency has a productive core exporting the surplus (capital, goods, demand) that sustains a periphery which would contract without it — persistence of the periphery's activity is import-contingent. In *monetary policy*, a central bank's liquidity support keeps weak regional banks solvent that would fail on their own funding — the strong node subsidizes the deficit nodes, and withdrawing support exposes them. In *physiology*, donor-recipient organ perfusion in a shared circulation sustains a tissue whose own supply is inadequate, kept viable only by the import from the surplus side. Ecology, trade, banking, and physiology are four unlike systems; each persists as a whole only because net-producing units subsidize net-consuming units across a coupling.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed GENUS of the input prime `source_sink_habitat`, by stripping the ecological population framing (organisms, births/deaths, dispersal) and keeping only the asymmetric source-sink coupling over an arbitrary flowed quantity. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03, listed as a Tier-B (B-rest) candidate in `manifest_op05_rest.yaml`. It claimed three siblings — core-periphery trade dependency, central-bank liquidity support, and donor-recipient organ perfusion — spanning trade, monetary policy, and physiology.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the source-sink structure is a genuinely recurring, well-characterized topology, and the lift off the ecology-specific input is one of the cleaner ones in this batch — the trade and central-bank siblings are real, formalizable instances (core-periphery models; lender-of-last-resort dynamics), not strained analogies, and the "hidden fragility / masked carrying capacity" payoff-cost transfers intact across all of them. Substrate-independence is high. The specific RISKS: (1) **High similarity to the input (~0.68)** — the input `source_sink_habitat`, though ecology-flavored, may already be intended as the general structure with habitats as the exemplar; if so, this lift is a *restatement* rather than a genus, and the right move is to broaden the input's framing instead of adding a sibling prime. Kurt should decide whether `source_sink_habitat` is meant as domain-specific (then this genus stands above it) or as already-general (then merge). (2) **Alias/overlap risk vs `buffering`/reserve or a redistribution prime** — this genus is *spatial/topological subsidy across units*, to be distinguished from *temporal buffering within a unit* (store-and-release over time) and from generic redistribution; the boundary must be drawn so it does not dissolve into either. (3) **Tier-B coinage** — "asymmetric source-sink coupling" is a bespoke label; the ecological term "source-sink dynamics" is established, but the cross-domain genus is the coinage. **Sharp keep/cut question for Kurt: is `source_sink_habitat` a domain-specific instance that this genus should sit above (keep), or is it already the general prime with habitats as its example (merge/restatement)?**

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against the input `source_sink_habitat` FIRST (0.68 makes restatement the live risk) and against any `buffering`/reserve, redistribution, or gradient-flow prime to fix the boundaries. If it survives as distinct, draw a subsumption edge `source_sink_habitat → asymmetric_source_sink_coupling` and sibling edges across the trade/central-bank/perfusion instances; add a missing-edge note if a buffering or redistribution prime should be a sibling/parent. If it fails the restatement test, recommend generalizing the input's framing rather than keeping both primes. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
