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Merging dynamical and structural indicators to measure resilience in multispecies systems
Lucas P Medeiros1, Chuliang Song1,2,3, Serguei Saavedra1
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
The Journal of Animal Ecology
|January 15, 2021
Summary
Ecological resilience, measured by recovery speed from abundance changes, predicts resistance to structural changes. Faster recovery indicates higher resistance, revealing complementary insights into system stability.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Theoretical Ecology
- Mathematical Biology
Background:
- Ecological resilience assesses a system's ability to withstand and recover from disturbances.
- A key challenge is determining if recovery and resistance measures offer complementary information.
- Current understanding links recovery to dynamical stability but not structural perturbations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a framework linking dynamical and structural stability in Lotka-Volterra systems.
- To connect recovery from abundance perturbations with resistance to parameter perturbations.
- To investigate if recovery and resistance measures provide complementary insights into ecological resilience.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Lotka-Volterra systems for theoretical analysis.
- Defined and measured 'full recovery' and 'partial recovery' based on return rates after abundance perturbations.
- Defined and measured 'full resistance' and 'partial resistance' based on parameter perturbations in theoretical and experimental microbial systems.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated a negative correlation between recovery rate and resistance magnitude.
- Faster recovery from abundance perturbations corresponds to higher resistance to parameter perturbations.
- Confirmed that full and partial components of recovery and resistance are complementary indicators of resilience.
Conclusions:
- Ecological recovery and resistance measures provide complementary information about system resilience.
- The speed of recovery from abundance perturbations can predict resistance to structural changes.
- Findings support using either dynamical (recovery) or structural (resistance) indicators, with added value from analyzing full and partial components.
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