Advancing our understanding of ecological stability

Abstract

The concept of ecological stability occupies a prominent place in both fundamental and applied ecological research. We review decades of work on the topic and examine how our understanding has progressed. We show that our understanding of stability has remained fragmented and is limited largely to simple or simplified systems. There has been a profusion of metrics proposed to quantify stability, of which only a handful are used commonly. Furthermore, studies typically quantify one to two metrics of stability at a time and in response to a single perturbation, with some of the main environmental pressures of today being the least studied. We argue that we need to build on the existing consensus and strong theoretical foundation of the stability concept to better understand its multidimensionality and the interdependencies between metrics, levels of organisation and types of perturbations. Only by doing so can we make progress in the quantification of stability in theory and in practice, and eventually build a more comprehensive understanding of how ecosystems will respond to ongoing environmental change.

Understanding tidal marsh trajectories: evaluation of multiple indicators of marsh persistence

“…This synthesis represented a cross-disciplinary effort, and involved a critical examination of metrics independently developed by different teams, a highly unusual endeavor (Kéfi et al 2019). By working across disciplines, we were able to detect weaknesses in earlier approaches.…”

“…Globally, scientists conduct assessments of ecosystem stability to inform policy and management (Sato and Lindenmayer 2018). Many different stability metrics have been developed, but most investigations only use one or a few, and multiple stability metrics have rarely been correlated to each other or integrated (Kéfi et al 2019). Yet in order to direct monitoring efforts and provide vital guidance to decision-makers, it is critical to evaluate multiple assessment alternatives, and potentially integrate them to determine ecosystem condition (Donohue et al 2016).…”

Critical transitions in rainfall manipulation experiments on grasslands

“…Actually, most of them have failed to subject grasslands to extreme drought treatments and to monitor biomass production after drought cessation (Estiarte et al, 2016;Gao et al, 2019;Matos et al, 2019). Additionally, most studies have assessed resilience using metrics (Ingrisch & Bahn, 2018) that disregard the possibility that alternative stable states may exist in the system (Kéfi et al, 2019;van Nes et al, 2016). Hence, we have little mechanistic information about what shapes grassland resilience and whether they can undergo critical transitions in response to extreme droughts.…”

“…In rainfall manipulation experiments conducted to date, resilience has often been assessed by measuring how close the system is from its initial state (Ingrisch & Bahn, 2018;Kéfi et al, 2019;Smith, Wilcox, Power, Tissue, & Knapp, 2017). This is usually done by comparing ANPP values obtained before drought (ANPP1), immediately after drought cessation (ANPP2) and after the recovery period (ANPP3; Figure 5a,b; Matos et al, 2019).…”

Meta‐analysis on pulse disturbances reveals differences in functional and compositional recovery across ecosystems

“…Despite the overarching picture provided by these and other synthesis efforts, none of them has actually quantified the degree of recovery in different ecosystems and elaborated on which covariates enhance or inhibit recovery from pulse disturbances. Such an analyses is timely given the recent advances in understanding the multiple dimensions of stability composing the response to pulse (and other) disturbances (Kéfi et al ). Donohue et al () provided an approach that allows quantifying the response to a disturbance by addressing multiple dimensions of stability.…”