Sudden shifts in ecological systems: intermittency and transients in the coupled Ricker population model

Many real ecological systems show sudden changes in behavior, phenomena sometimes categorized as regime shifts in the literature. The relative importance of exogenous versus endogenous forces producing regime shifts is an important question. These forces' role in generating variability over time in ecological systems has been explored using tools from dynamical systems. We use similar ideas to look at transients in simple ecological models as a way of understanding regime shifts. Based in part on the theory of crises, we carefully analyze a simple two patch spatial model and begin to understand from a mathematical point of view what produces transient behavior in ecological systems. In particular, since the tools are essentially qualitative, we are able to suggest that transient behavior should be ubiquitous in systems with overcompensatory local dynamics, and thus should be typical of many ecological systems.