“…Much research effort has been expended in the search for early warning signals of declining resilience and tipping points as measured in the frequency domain, such as critical slowing down and flickering (Scheffer et al, ). However, these remain contentious (Bauch, Sigdel, Pharaon, & Anand, ; Ditlevsen & Johnsen, ; Hastings & Wysham, ; Kéfi, Dakos, Scheffer, Van Nes, & Rietkerk, ) and prove elusive in ecological records constrained by sparse temporal data, high data noise and low resolution (Wang et al, ). In contrast, few studies of changes in ecosystem structure have measured the network domain, even though theory predicts that losses of ecosystem resilience should always be associated with structural changes in species associations (Scheffer et al, ; Strogatz, ).…”