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The distribution and role of functional abundance in cross-scale resilience
Citation:
Sundstrom, S., D. Angler, C. Barichievy, T. Eason, A. Garmestani, L. Gunderson, M. Knutson, K. Nash, T. Spanbauer, C. Stow, AND C. Allen. The distribution and role of functional abundance in cross-scale resilience. ECOLOGY. Ecological Society of America, Ithaca, NY, 99(11):2421-2432, (2018). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2508
Impact/Purpose:
Long before Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), humans have carefully observed the natural world and noted what species are present, and in what numbers (e.g. Aristotle’s History of Animals circa 4th century BCE). Such basic knowledge remains integral to the most advanced natural science theories of our time. One such theory arises from complex systems science, and argues that the resilience of ecological and other complex systems emerges from a suite of attributes that allow the system to flex, absorb, and adapt to disturbances in a way that promotes the long-term persistence of the system in a recognizable and quantifiable configuration (to remain in a regime, or on an attractor; see Glossary; Holling 1973).
Description:
The cross-scale resilience model suggests that system-level ecological resilience emerges from the distribution of species’ functions within and across the spatial and temporal scales of a system. It has provided a quantitative method for calculating the resilience of a given system and so has been a valuable contribution to a largely qualitative field. As it is currently laid out, the model accounts for the spatial and temporal scales at which environmental resources and species are present and the functional roles species play but does not inform us about how much resource is present or how much function is provided. In short, it does not account for abundance in the distribution of species and their functional roles within and across the scales of a system. We detail the ways in which we would expect species’ abundance to be relevant to the cross-scale resilience model based on the extensive abundance literature in ecology. We also put forward a series of testable hypotheses that would improve our ability to anticipate and quantify how resilience is generated, and how ecosystems will (or will not) buffer recent rapid global changes. This stream of research may provide an improved foundation for the quantitative evaluation of ecological resilience.
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DOI: The distribution and role of functional abundance in cross-scale resilience
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