Recent developments in the application of Fisher information to sustainable environmental management

Detecting spatial regimes in ecosystems

“…; Gonzalez‐Mejia et al . ). It is therefore possible for FI to increase as a system transitions from one regime to another.…”

“…While steadily increasing FI indicates rising dynamic order, less change and possible movement to more consistent patterns, declining FI signifies unstable dynamics, loss of resilience and may provide warning of an impending shift . Although FI typically declines prior to a regime shift (Mayer et al 2007;Eason & Cabezas 2012;Eason et al 2014), researchers examined model dynamics to study the behaviour of FI in the neighbourhood of a tipping point and found that the behaviour of FI depends heavily on the trends in the variables as the system approaches a shift Gonzalez-Mejia et al 2015). It is therefore possible for FI to increase as a system transitions from one regime to another.…”

Toward a leading indicator of catastrophic shifts in complex systems: Assessing changing conditions in nation states

“…The window is then moved forward one time step and the process is repeated. The FI value for each time window is assigned to the last time step of each time window so that only “past” data is used in the computation ( Gonzalez-Mejia et al, 2015 ). The basis for interpreting FI trends is understanding that stable regimes are denoted by distinct patterns which may experience natural fluctuations, but the overall condition does not change with time; hence, system regimes have relatively stable non-zero FI (i.e., dFI/dt ≈ 0).…”

“…There is consensus that:(1) a system regime has distinguishing patterns and therefore characteristic order, (2) two different dynamic regimes of a system do not generally operate in line with the same patterns and accordingly, do not have the same degree of order, (3) the transition between two different regimes usually involves a period with lower order than either regime, and (4) dynamic systems must maintain some level of order to continue to function ( Fath et al, 2003 ; Karunanithi et al, 2008 ). These principles have been demonstrated through numerous empirical studies for a variety of systems ( Mayer et al, 2007 ; Karunanithi et al, 2008 ; Rico-Ramirez et al, 2010 ; Spanbauer et al, 2014 ; Eason et al, 2016 ; Sundstrom et al, 2017 ) and explored more fully in Gonzalez-Mejia et al (2015) . Natural processes such as volcanic eruptions, changes in water availability, as well as anthropogenic influences such as wars, hunting practices and pollution may cause regime shifts in multiple ways, sometimes decimating entire populations, e.g.…”

“…It has been used as a tool to derive many laws of nature (Frieden, 1998 , 2001 ), and was adapted into a method for assessing dynamic order in model and real world systems, including a simple predator-prey model and multi-species model food webs, as well as real-life systems, e.g., the Bering Strait ecosystem, the western African savannah and the U.S.-Florida pine-oak ecosystem ( Mayer and Pawlowski, 2006 ). It has also been used as a sustainability metric, employed as a tool for monitoring and managing environmental and regional systems (Shastri et al, 2008a , 2008b ; Cabezas and Eason 2010 ; Eason and Cabezas, 2012 ; Gonzalez-Mejia et al, 2015 ) and used to study political instability in various nations throughout the world ( Karunanithi et al, 2011 ). Further, it has been demonstrated as a method of assessing changing conditions in urban systems ( Gonzalez-Mejia, 2011 ; Eason and Garmestani, 2012 ; Gonzalez-Mejia et al, 2012a , 2012b , 2014 ) and proposed as a leading indicator of temporal and spatial regime shifts ( Karunanithi et al, 2008 ; Eason et al, 2014 ; Spanbauer et al, 2014 ; Eason et al, 2016 ; Sundstrom et al, 2017 ).…”