In general, resistance is the ability of a community to remain unchanged when challenged by disturbances (Grimm and Wissel 1997), and resilience is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks” as originally defined by Holling (1973) and modified by Walker et al. (2004).
What is the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem resilience?
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience. These interactions often create negative feedback loops, keeping the ecosystem in approximately the same state. For example, if the population of a certain type of plant starts to grow, then the population of an animal that eats this plant may also start to grow, thereby lowering the population of the plant.
What is the difference between resilience and resistance?
Generally, resistance is characterized as the influence of structure and composition on disturbance, whereas resilience is characterized as the influence of disturbance on subsequent structure and composition.
What are the two components of ecosystem stability?
Ecosystem stability is often divided into two components: resistance and resilience. Ecosystem resistance is the ability of a system to avoid change – the capacity to stay in the same state in the face of perturbation (e.g., fire, unusual frost or drought, plowing, eutrophication).
What is the difference between stand resilience and landscape resilience?
Stand resilience is the influence of disturbance on subsequent vegetation structure and composition in terms of, e.g., stand age, tree size distribution, or species dominance. Landscape resilience is the influence of a disturbance on the subsequent structure and composition of multiple stands (forest-wide).
What would happen if a comet hit Earth?
Why is the metaphor of ecosystems important?
Why are ecosystem interactions important?
What happens when you remove one species?
What are some examples of bees?
How many species of animals are there on Earth?
How does genetic diversity affect species?
See 4 more
About this website
Is resilience and resistance the same?
Resilience is the capacity to recover. Resistance is the ability to remain largely unchanged.
How are resilient ecosystems affected by disturbances?
Ecological Resilience Once disturbed, new conditions can foster a new set of feedbacks and prevent the system from returning to its pre-disturbance equilibrium. For example, plants absorb phosphorus and limit algal growth in shallow lakes with low levels of phosphorus.
What does it mean if an ecosystem is resilient?
Ecosystem resilience is the inherent ability to absorb various disturbances and reorganize while undergoing state changes to maintain critical functions. From: Ecological Indicators, 2015.
What determines the resilience of an ecosystem?
Ecosystems that are more complex are more resilient, or better able to tolerate and recover from disturbances, than ecosystems that are less complex. To help illustrate why this is, imagine a complex ecosystem with many components and many interactions between those components.
What is an example of a resilient ecosystem?
An example of ecological resilience is an ability of an aquatic ecosystem, like a lake, to maintain its biological organization and structure despite increased nutrients from the runoff of a storm.
What are two important factors in determining how resilient an ecosystem is to disturbance?
In addition, redundancy (niche overlap between species) and modularity (the interconnectedness of a system's components) are considered to be important factors that determine an ecosystem's resilience.
What does it mean for an ecosystem to be resilient quizlet?
Ecological Resilience. The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.
How is resilience related to ecosystem diversity quizlet?
Resilience of an ecosystem ensures that it will continue to provide benefits to humans. This greatly depends on species diversity. states that ecosystems experiencing intermediate levels of disturbance are more diverse than those with high or low disturbance levels. Provisions- Goods that humans can use directly.
How do disturbances affect ecosystems?
Disturbances act to disrupt stable ecosystems and clear species' habitat. As a result, disturbances lead to species movement into the newly cleared area (secondary succession). Once an area is cleared there is a progressive increase in species richness and competition between species takes place.
How do disturbances affect biodiversity?
From an among-patch or landscape perspective, disturbances create heterogeneity in time and space that increases β-level and γ-level biodiversity, while rescuing species from local extinction via immigration from other patches.
How do ecosystems respond to disturbances?
The change a terrestrial ecosystem experiences as it recovers from a disturbance depends on the intensity and magnitude of the disturbance. The major mechanisms of recovery in such ecosystems are primary and secondary succession. Primary succession occurs in a landscape that previously was devoid of life.
What are the two types of disturbances that affect ecosystems?
I define three main types of disturbance effects: D disturbance (shifts in mortality rate), B disturbance (shifts in reproductive rates) and K disturbance (shifts in carrying capacity). Numerous composite disturbances can be defined including any combination of these three types of ecological effects.
Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystem Functions - ScienceDirect
The Importance of Resilience. Across the globe, conservation efforts have not managed to alleviate biodiversity loss , and this will ultimately impact many functions delivered by ecosystems 2, 3.To aid environmental management in the face of conflicting land-use pressures, there is an urgent need to quantify and predict the spatial and temporal distribution of ecosystem functions and services ...
Declining resilience of ecosystem functions under biodiversity loss ...
The composition of species communities is changing rapidly through drivers such as habitat loss and climate change, with potentially serious consequences for the resilience of ecosystem functions ...
Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem ... - Nature
Data from experiments that manipulated grassland biodiversity across Europe and North America show that biodiversity increases an ecosystem’s resistance to, although not resilience after ...
Resilience of ecosystems and biodiversity | SEFARI
We have continued work to on a range of high priority species and habitats to provide information on how these systems might change due to land use and climate change, how these changes might affect the resilience and functioning, and to provide evidence on how to mitigate these changes to promote biodiversity, resilience, and ecosystem functioning.
Using ecological resilience to manage ecosystems and species at risk
Despite the desire to manage for resilient ecosystems that have the capacity to recover after disturbance, attempts to effectively use ecological resilience concepts for conservation and restoration have been limited.
What would happen if a comet hit Earth?
If a large enough asteroid or comet hits Earth, then it could cause human extinction, as well as the extinction of many, many other species. The destruction would come from the impact itself (which could cause massive tsunamis) and from the large amount of dust that kicks up into the atmosphere (which is similar to the effects of nuclear weapon detonation). Fortunately, large asteroid and comet impacts are not likely to happen anytime soon. In general, the most likely human extinction scenarios are those related to human activity, including all of the other scenarios discussed on this page.
Why is the metaphor of ecosystems important?
But the metaphor still works well because it emphasizes the importance of interactions between species and the role that one species can play in the overall function of the entire ecosystem.
Why are ecosystem interactions important?
Ecosystems contain many interactions like this. These interactions are crucial to understanding the importance of individual species in biodiversity.
What happens when you remove one species?
But this doesn't always happen. Sometimes, when one species is removed, the ecosystem does not respond in such dramatic fashion.
What are some examples of bees?
One of the clearest and most important examples of the importance of one species to others is that of the honey bee and its role in agricultural ecosystems. Honey bees help many important crops by performing pollination, including many fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other species. Just some examples include almonds, apples, broccoli, cotton, grapes, lemons, onions, soybeans, tomatoes, and walnuts. However, recently many honey bees have been dying, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, thereby threatening these crops.
How many species of animals are there on Earth?
The Earth has 895 separate ecological regions. They are home to over 4,000 different species of mammals, 270,000 species of plants, and 950,000 species of insects. The more biologically diverse the region, the better its chances of survival. We can think of biodiversity in three ways.
How does genetic diversity affect species?
Genetic biodiversity measures how much variety there is in the gene pool of a particular species. When threatened by disease , those species with a more diverse gene pool are more likely to produce individuals who are able to survive and procreate. Those with smaller gene pools can be wiped out forever.
How do plants contribute to ecosystem stability?
Evidence has accumulated for the idea that both components of ecosystem stability are primarily determined by key traits of the dominant plant species. Highly productive communities, dominated by fast-growing plants, tend to have high resilience and low resistance, with the opposite being true for communities dominated by slow-growing plants. Productivity and seed production (especially persistent seeds) favor resilience, whereas preferential allocation to storage and defense favors resistance. These ideas were formalized by Lepš et al. (1982) on the basis of studies of old-field successional communities. Recently, new experimental support has been provided for the idea that vegetation resistance and resilience in the face of extreme events are a function of the nutrient stress tolerance of the component species. Figure 8 illustrates that resistance to extreme events increases, and resilience decreases with increasing nutrient stress tolerance in herbaceous communities.
What is the ability of an ecosystem to maintain key functions and processes in the face of stresses or pressures?
Ecosystem resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem to maintain key functions and processes in the face of stresses or pressures, either by resisting or adapting to change (Holling, 1973;
Why are MPAs important?
Although MPAs do not directly address the threats from climate change, they promote biodiversity and ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change because they reduce some of the other stressors on marine populations (McLeod et al., 2009). For example, herbivorous fish maintain coral-dominated ecosystems by grazing competitive macroalgae.
What is an ecoregional plan?
Ecoregional plans clarify the where, when, and how of conservation action at a regional scale. This requires developing one or more plausible scenarios that address stated goals and objectives in places that maximize the potential for successful implementation. Ideally, scenarios are generated to inform stakeholders of trends in ecosystem resilience and threats and to identify emerging opportunities. Because other resources are typically needed from the ecoregion's land and waters, other social and economic interests are at stake. As a result, most systematic methods for scenario design are built upon the notion of complementarity, where each selected site maximizes its contribution to meeting regional objectives while minimizing the combined area of selected sites (Sarkar et al., 2006 ).
What is resilience in ecology?
In an ecological sense, resilience describes the persistence of ecosystem structure and function in the face of changing conditions ( Gunderson et al., 1997; Holling, 1973). Ecosystems are characterized as having high resilience if they maintain structure and function following disturbance. Factors that contribute to ecological resilience vary by ecosystem, but some studies suggest that biological diversity (and in particular functional redundancy) positively influences ecosystem resilience (Allen et al., 2005; Peterson et al., 1998; Walker et al., 1999 ). In addition to the role species play in maintaining resilience, connectivity between ecosystems can influence response to disturbance. Maintaining or enhancing connectivity is one of the most frequently recommended strategies for the management of biodiverse and resilient landscapes ( Heller and Zavaleta, 2009; Olds et al., 2012 ).
What is the role of resilience in an ecosystem?
Ecosystem resilience refers to the ability of an ecosystem to maintain key functions and processes in the face of stresses or pressures, either by resisting or adapting to change ( Holling, 1973; Nyström and Folke, 2001 ).
Why is ecological resilience important?
Ecological resilience is a critical component of sustainability as it quite literally determines the goods and services produced by ecosystems. If the objectives of sustainable development are to steward opportunities for economic growth and social well-being, the capacity of ecosystems to produce good s and services must be safeguarded. This notion has been consistently captured in sustainable development policies by emphasizing efforts to protect and enhance biodiversity at a global scale. It is important to note, however, that this emphasis on ecosystem health reflects adherence to the strong sustainability concept, which is described in more detail in the succeeding text.
How to promote Engelmann spruce?
To promote Engelmann spruce establishment, silvicultural intervention would need to be conducted well in advance of an outbreak. These treatments should leave large, seed-bearing spruce so that a catch of spruce can become established. Group selection methods are conventionally used to regenerate spruce in the Rocky Mountains ( Alexander 1987 ); however, the shelterwood regeneration method could feasibly, in the short term, result in the establishment of a much larger area of young spruce than is possible with group selection because much larger areas could be treated. Specifically, a uniform shelterwood can quickly and effectively create the necessary microsite conditions for timely spruce establishment ( Long 1994 ), resulting in young spruce stands that should not be susceptible for at least 70 years.
What is the goal of forest management?
Commonly, building resistance and resilience is cited as a general goal of forest management in the context of climate change for adaptation ( Millar et al. 2007, Stephens et al. 2010 ). By meeting this goal, it is presumed that desired forest characteristics such as ecological goods and services will be maintained within reasonable values of change if/when the forest faces a broad range of disturbances (e.g., drought, insects, or fire; Puettmann 2011, O'Hara and Ramage 2013 ). Although easy to describe in forest management planning, the development and evaluation of specific, measurable objectives ( Long et al. 2010, Long and Kurtzman 2012) becomes a time-consuming and laborious process for silviculturists, particularly when the ambiguities of managing uncertainties associated with climate change are added to traditional planning constraints. Frustrations associated with these ambiguities can be alleviated if instead silviculturists focus attention on how climate change will probably affect the environment, and therefore, structure and composition. For example, expected climate change might result in drastic alterations to the variability in disturbance regimes ( Miller et al. 2009 ), fundamental shifts in species ranges ( Rehfeldt et al. 2006 ), or shifting requirements for germination and establishment ( McKenney et al. 2009 ). Viewed this way, the potential effects of climate change are reduced from large-scale generalities to more explicit processes and attributes (disturbance intensity, structure, or composition) that can be used by the silviculturist to characterize, and plan for, resistance and resilience.
How does a spruce beetle affect landscape resilience?
Landscape resilience is reflected in the influence of a spruce beetle outbreak on the landscape-wide distribution of stand ages, structures, and compositions relative to those desired ( Table 1; Figure 2 B). Landscape resilience could be characterized to reflect the goal that spruce dominance be maintained over the long term. Such resilience might be represented by landscape-wide tree species diversity and spruce age-class diversity. When challenged by an outbreak that killed all mature spruce, both the old forest character (surviving nonhost species) and the potential for future spruce-dominated stands (advance reproduction) would be maintained. In Engelmann spruce landscapes with limited species and age-class diversity, silviculturists might consider implementing an aggressive program of regeneration harvests focused on stands with high spruce beetle hazard ratings ( Schmid and Frye 1976 ). Increasing the representation of stands of young spruce and increasing species diversity before an outbreak should increase both short- and long-term resilience.
What is the difference between resilience and resistance?
Generally, resistance is characterized as the influence of structure and composition on disturbance, whereas resilience is characterized as the influence of disturbance on subsequent structure and composition.
What are forest management goals?
Increasingly, forest management goals include building or maintaining resistance and/or resilience to disturbances in the face of climate change. Although a multitude of descriptive definitions for resistance and resilience exist, to evaluate whether specific management activities (silviculture) are effective, prescriptive characterizations are necessary. We introduce a conceptual framework that explicitly differentiates resistance and resilience, denotes appropriate scales, and establishes the context for evaluation—structure and composition. Generally, resistance is characterized as the influence of structure and composition on disturbance, whereas resilience is characterized as the influence of disturbance on subsequent structure and composition. Silvicultural utility of the framework is demonstrated by describing disturbance-specific, time-bound structural and compositional objectives for building resistance and resilience to two fundamentally different disturbances: wildfires and spruce beetle outbreaks. The conceptual framework revealed the crucial insight that attempts to build stand or landscape resistance to spruce beetle outbreaks will ultimately be unsuccessful. This frees the silviculturist to focus on realistic goals associated with building resilience to likely inevitable outbreaks. Ultimately, because structure and composition, at appropriate scales, are presented as the standards for evaluation and manipulation, the framework is broadly applicable to many kinds of disturbance in various forest types.
What are the indicators of spruce beetle resilience?
c Indicators of stand and landscape resilience to spruce beetle might include, e.g., surviving large trees (stand) and the potential for future spruce dominance (landscape).
What is the conceptual framework of resilience?
The conceptual framework makes explicit the distinction between resistance and resilience, which are not interchangeable. The structure- and composition-based characterizations are silviculturally relevant so that prescriptions to build resistance and/or resilience can be designed, implemented, and evaluated for success—all necessary to avoid litigation on federal land. By following the framework, one can avoid using the terms resistance and resilience as an end in and of themselves. We demonstrate the robustness of the framework by using it to assess resistance and resilience to two fundamentally different disturbances: wildfire and spruce beetle outbreak.
What is the Difference Between Resilience and Resistance?
Resilience is the ability to overcome challenges you face, whereas resistance is to ignore or avoid challenges altogether.
How to Overcome Resistance to Change
How often have you heard someone say they want to change something in their life, but they never seem to get around to it? They might even tell themselves that they don't want to change anything.
Increase Your Resilience
So, what does it mean to be resilient? It means being able to cope with whatever comes your way. It would be best to learn how to manage your emotions when facing challenges.
Conclusion
It's easy to fall into a cycle of resistance when faced with challenges. However, if you learn to deal with these challenges effectively, you can build your resilience and continue moving forward.
What would happen if a comet hit Earth?
If a large enough asteroid or comet hits Earth, then it could cause human extinction, as well as the extinction of many, many other species. The destruction would come from the impact itself (which could cause massive tsunamis) and from the large amount of dust that kicks up into the atmosphere (which is similar to the effects of nuclear weapon detonation). Fortunately, large asteroid and comet impacts are not likely to happen anytime soon. In general, the most likely human extinction scenarios are those related to human activity, including all of the other scenarios discussed on this page.
Why is the metaphor of ecosystems important?
But the metaphor still works well because it emphasizes the importance of interactions between species and the role that one species can play in the overall function of the entire ecosystem.
Why are ecosystem interactions important?
Ecosystems contain many interactions like this. These interactions are crucial to understanding the importance of individual species in biodiversity.
What happens when you remove one species?
But this doesn't always happen. Sometimes, when one species is removed, the ecosystem does not respond in such dramatic fashion.
What are some examples of bees?
One of the clearest and most important examples of the importance of one species to others is that of the honey bee and its role in agricultural ecosystems. Honey bees help many important crops by performing pollination, including many fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other species. Just some examples include almonds, apples, broccoli, cotton, grapes, lemons, onions, soybeans, tomatoes, and walnuts. However, recently many honey bees have been dying, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, thereby threatening these crops.
How many species of animals are there on Earth?
The Earth has 895 separate ecological regions. They are home to over 4,000 different species of mammals, 270,000 species of plants, and 950,000 species of insects. The more biologically diverse the region, the better its chances of survival. We can think of biodiversity in three ways.
How does genetic diversity affect species?
Genetic biodiversity measures how much variety there is in the gene pool of a particular species. When threatened by disease , those species with a more diverse gene pool are more likely to produce individuals who are able to survive and procreate. Those with smaller gene pools can be wiped out forever.
A Repeated Pattern of Resistance/Resilience Trade-Offs
- All told, the researchers used pre- and post-storm monitoring surveys to analyze patterns of ecosystem resistance and resilience from 26 Northern Hemisphere storms. These made landfall between 1985 and 2018 in states from Texas to North Carolina, as well as in Puerto Rico and Taiwan. The researchers gauged storm characteristics and impacts via tota...
Knowledge to Guide Effective Strategies
- The team’s findings suggest that managers seeking to enhance both resistance and resilience in coastal ecosystems may face an impossible task. On the other hand, their findings provide valuable guidance for choosing the single most effective management strategy for a particular location. “If you can’t manage for both resistance and resilience,” asks Patrick, “which should yo…
Future Directions
- As one of the first comprehensive studies of the ecological impacts of tropical cyclones, the team’s analysis raises as many questions as it answers, and points to several important areas for future research by the group, formally known as the Hurricane Ecosystem Response Synthesis Network, or HERS. Future research areas—guided by a HERS steering committee—include studie…
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience
- Ecosystems involve many complex interactions between members of different species. These interactions often create negative feedback loops, keeping the ecosystem in approximately the same state. For example, if the population of a certain type of plant starts to grow, then the population of an animal that eats this plant may also start to grow, the...
Human Extinction
- Throughout this module, we've been focusing on biodiversity loss and species extinctions, in which the species going extinct are species other than humans. But what about us? It turns out that there are threats to the existence of the human species. Some of them have already been discussed in this course. Human extinction would also have major impacts on natural systems. …
Human Extinction Hazards
- Recall from Module 8 that a hazard is an extreme event that causes harm to humans. A human extinction hazard is thus an event that causes human extinction. For better or worse, there exist quite a few human extinction hazards. Here are some important ones: Climate change. We already know that the climate is changing and that these changes are harming humanity. What …
Ethical Issues with Human Extinction and Some Concluding Remarks
- Please read the article Long-Term Sustainability. What are the ethical issues raised here? What are the arguments being made? Do you agree or disagree with them? What other issues does human extinction raise, both for us as individuals and for society at large? How much of a priority should avoiding human extinction be relative to other issues we face? And above all, what do yo…