Authors
Brandon T Bestelmeyer, Aaron M Ellison, William R Fraser, Kristen B Gorman, Sally J Holbrook, Christine M Laney, Mark D Ohman, Debra PC Peters, Finn C Pillsbury, Andrew Rassweiler, Russell J Schmitt, Sapna Sharma
Publication date
2011/12
Journal
Ecosphere
Volume
2
Issue
12
Pages
1-26
Publisher
Ecological Society of America
Description
The occurrence and causes of abrupt transitions, thresholds, or regime shifts between ecosystem states are of great concern and the likelihood of such transitions is increasing for many ecological systems. General understanding of abrupt transitions has been advanced by theory, but hindered by the lack of a common, accessible, and data‐driven approach to characterizing them. We apply such an approach to 30–60 years of data on environmental drivers, biological responses, and associated evidence from pelagic ocean, coastal benthic, polar marine, and semi‐arid grassland ecosystems. Our analyses revealed one case in which the response (krill abundance) linearly tracked abrupt changes in the driver (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), but abrupt transitions detected in the three other cases (sea cucumber abundance, penguin abundance, and black grama grass production) exhibited hysteretic relationships with …
Total citations
Scholar articles
BT Bestelmeyer, AM Ellison, WR Fraser, KB Gorman… - Ecosphere, 2011